


Synthesis

by ryttu3k



Series: May Contain Robots [1]
Category: Pocket Monsters | Pokemon (Main Video Game Series), Pocket Monsters | Pokemon - All Media Types, Pocket Monsters: X & Y | Pokemon X & Y Versions
Genre: Androids, Autistic Character, Cybernetics, Disability, Injury Recovery, Jewish Character, M/M, Nonbinary Character, Permanent Injury, Robot Feels, Robot/Human Relationships, Robots
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-08
Updated: 2016-09-20
Packaged: 2018-08-13 23:34:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 20
Words: 41,084
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7990333
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ryttu3k/pseuds/ryttu3k
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After a devastating lab accident, Augustine Sycamore must fight to regain his life - in a matter of speaking. Lysandre has promised to be there by his side every step of the way, but what is it he's not saying? And why does Xerosic think that the way to survive is to sacrifice his humanity?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Boot-Up

**Author's Note:**

> Various and sundry warnings apply - will give specific chapter warnings at the start of each chapter.

Consciousness.

It's hard to say whether consciousness has returned. Consciousness returning implies a knowledge of something coming before, a definitive 'asleep' that comes before the 'awake'. The one who is now awake is not aware of the asleep, merely that consciousness is their current existence.

It's hard to say much of anything at all.

Are they awake? There's nothing to compare to.

They can think. Some part of them is able to make connections between thoughts. There is questioning. There is a slight surprise, perhaps, at the sensation of consciousness.

But consciousness returned? That's harder to pin down.

There are questions. They can still ask those.

_Where am I?_

There is no answer to that. They cannot identify Nothing, because that requires knowledge of Something, and for now, knowledge of Something is not to be had.

_What happened?_

It's also hard to say. There's no chronology in their mind. They can't quite picture the Before, there's no Past leading to the Present.

_Who am I?_

And that, it seems, is the right question to ask.

Answers flood the mind of the one who is awake, and that brings answers to the other questions. _Where am I?_ Floating in some sort of black void, unable to see or hear or move but able to think. _What happened?_ Something bad, he's sure of it - he knows enough, now, to know that 'floating in a black void' is not his usual state of existence. _Who am I?_

_Who am I?_

He's Augustine Sycamore. He remembers that, now. He remembers the face in the mirror, remembers the bits and pieces that make him up, the context of his life.

He remembers being held, a gentle hand wiping tears and snot away from his face when he falls over, hugs and reassurances. Teaching him Hebrew, the words he'll need to say at his Bar Mitzvah once he decides it's a better fit than a Bat Mitzvah, unconditional love. _Maman._ He remembers being taught to draw, a bigger hand guiding his little one to show him how to make marks on paper to capture the likeness of his surroundings, of sitting on a pair of broad shoulders and seeing the world from up high. _Papa._

He remembers a twin, a sister, tousled dark curls bent towards his own as they work on jigsaw puzzles and colouring books, swapping clothes and toys, happy in her shorts and trousers, his sister twirling in his dresses, hiding away in the cubby house at the playground together, a bright smile and a welcoming visit to a patisserie when they get days off together; the other half of his soul, his best friend since before he was born. _Diantha._

He remembers piercing blue eyes in a freckled face and bright, bright red hair, the scent of coffee and a warm hand in his own, on his back, on his thigh, fingertips brushing his hair from his eyes. Kisses, gentleness and intensity, joy and sadness, a life shared, and love, love, love. _Lysandre._

An aunt, patiently reading out the names of Dragon-types in a children's book, introducing him to her Noivern, letting him clamber up on its broad back. _Auntie Drasna._ His first Dragon-type, a terrified Gible turned into a friendly Garchomp, huge and alarming and pointy, sweet and kind and gentle, her rough skin so comfortable and reassuring to stroke when in the middle of a meltdown. _Artemis._

A mentor, a teacher to guide him. Long hours in Sinnoh, the coldest winter he's ever experienced. Sweets and hot chocolate, harsh expressions melting into proud smiles. _Professor Rowan._

Coffee and jokes in the break room, taking samples from the garden, pouring over test results. Students that become coworkers, coworkers that become friends. Building up the best collection of stim toys in Lumiose City in the break room. _Sophie and Cosette. Sina and Dexio._

Bright young faces, eager trainers awaiting Pokemon and advice. Children he sets out on a journey. _The students._

He remembers them, he remembers them all.

He just can't remember how he got here.

Augustine tries to move, finds he has no way to even determine if that's possible. He has no awareness of his body - for all he knows, he's a brain floating in a jar, completely unaware of the world around him. He can't see or hear anything, not even the beating of his own heart; he can't move, can't feel. There is no movement of air to give a hint to the space around him, no smell, no sound.

He thinks, perhaps, that he might be in a coma.

It would certainly explain it. The blackness (although is he really seeing the colour black, or is it just the absence of light that makes it seem thus? Could he actually be floating in a void of white, or an endless field of green, or an eternity of purple and orange polka dots? Is 'black' just the end result of not receiving any visual information?), the inability to move or sense anything, the initial amnesia. The last thing he recalls... the last thing he recalls, he's pretty sure, is saying goodbye to Cosette as she left the lab for the day.

He can't remember anything after that, and, frankly, a serious head injury would explain both the amnesia and the coma.

Augustine knows he has to concentrate on waking up. He knows that, even now, his family is probably surrounding him, waiting for a sign. If they are, he can't see them, hear them; there's no indication that there's anyone in existence other than him, he cannot tell them that he's alive and well.

He's fairly certain, anyway. After all, he may, in fact, not be in a coma after all. Perhaps, he decides, he's actually dead.

If he is, then the afterlife is significantly more boring than he had been lead to believe.

Augustine tries to draw in a breath, but if he does, he can't feel it. He tries to reach out, but if he does, the darkness gives no indication. He can't move, can't feel.

But he can think.

It's a start.

He's tired. He's tired without knowing why, without knowing what has happened to him on The Outside that has put him in this state. He wants to sleep.

He does.

 

Augustine wakes up half a dozen times. This time, he's aware of the passage of time, in vague, imprecise ways. He knows that the time between consciousness is short the first time, longer the second. He can tell when he loses his grasp on consciousness just for a moment, only to grab it back soon after, and he knows when he wakes up feeling like he's just had a solid night's sleep.

Some times, consciousness slides past in skips and jumps. He thinks he's been aware, only to think back and find that, no, he's fairly sure it's been some time since he was. He loses himself in memories, thinks that hours have passed, wonders if it was only a few minutes.

It's hard to tell. The void did not, unfortunately, come with a clock.

Still, he is definitely aware of it when he begins to hear the sound.

_Beep. Beep. Beep._

It's intrusive. An annoying sound. He wants it to go away.

And then he realises that it actually means that he's not dead, and then he can't keep hold of it hard enough.

_Beep. Beep. Beep._

It's a heart monitor, he determines, he's heard them enough at the labs. Normally faster or slower - Pokemon physiology definitely does not correspond to human physiology, and that includes heart rates - but he recognises the same steady pattern.

He can't actually feel his pulse, no matter how hard he concentrates. But he's pretty sure he can hear it, or at least hear the evidence of it.

And that means that he's definitely in a coma, in hospital, and definitely not dead.

_Beep. Beep. Beep._

The sound is not always there, no matter how desperate he is to hear it. He suspects that hearing the sound means he's closer to the top of the pit he's found himself in, with tantalising full consciousness just out of reach. If he can hear, if he can feel, if he can see - perhaps he'll be able to pull himself free.

There are indistinct voices, drowned out by the beeping of the heart monitor. He hears low murmurs, matter-of-fact notes. The first words he can make out properly are, "- hundred and four over seventy-three -" and he's fairly sure that it's blood pressure. (In the normal range, if he remembers right. That's one thing. At least.)

"Augustine."

It's his name. He knows the voice, he's sure of it.

"Augustine, can you hear me?"

The voice is hopeful, afraid, uncertain.

"We're trying an EEG - it's, well - it's showing that you might be conscious. Aware. Can you hear me? Can you - move at all? Can you speak?"

 _Yes!_ he wants to scream, _I can hear you!_

He's sure he recognises the voice. He's sure it's Lysandre.

There's a slow exhalation. "I don't know if you can hear me," Lysandre says, and his voice is hoarse, sad. "But I'm - the EEG shows signs consistent with consciousness, and - the doctors said that this might happen. Regaining consciousness slowly, in bits and pieces - that you might be aware before you can move. It happens sometimes with - with brain injuries."

Another breath in, another breath out. Lysandre's voice cracks when he speaks again. "There was an accident at the lab. You were... very badly hurt. You've been in a coma for over a month."

Inhalation. Exhalation.

"We didn't know if you'd make it. But the EEG - it shows you're awake, and I don't know if you can hear me, but we're going to do everything we can. We won't give up."

He wants to be awake. He wants to reassure Lysandre, to tell him that he's here, that he can hear him.

He hears Lysandre exhale again. "I've been told that it's good to read to people who are - if you can hear me, then it'll give you something to focus on. I have a book here, I'll read it to you."

Augustine hears the pages turn, and settles in to listen to Lysandre read.

 

He sleeps, he wakes up. He can begin to determine periods of consciousness by listening to the beeping of the heart monitor, by Lysandre's regular visits, by the nurses dropping by to take his vital signs.

He doesn't hear his parents' voices, or Diantha's, or any other visitors. But Lysandre, oh. He barely leaves his side.

Lysandre reads novels, newspapers, biology text books. (He can't quite bring himself to admit - to himself, if no one else - that the biology text books are his favourites. If he could, he would be suppressing a smile, calling himself a nerd.) He tells Augustine about his day, where he rarely leaves the hospital but still will, sometimes, when his duties at Fleur-de-Lis Labs require his attention. He narrates his actions - confirming that he's tucking a blanket around Augustine's prone body, because it's towards the end of November and it's getting rather cold, explaining that the nurse is here to take his temperature and blood pressure again, his soft voice saying that he's running his hand through Augustine's hair, can he feel that?

(He can't. He can't feel anything.)

Lysandre reads him the newspaper, he reads the dates at the top of the page. The nurse starts telling him the time when she takes his vital signs.

It's some time after eleven in the morning, on the fourth of December, when Augustine opens his eyes.

The hospital room is unsurprising. Ceiling tiles, walls painted a soft green. A painting on the wall of some landscape, probably designed to be as inoffensive as possible. Cords and tubes; he can see leads attached to his chest and tubes in his mouth and nose in his peripheral vision. A lock of hair curls in somewhere above his left eye.

If he turns his eyes to the left, he can see the monitors, a heart monitor, a brain monitor, all making their steady reassuring sounds. If he turns his eyes to the right, he can see a bedside table topped with a tray and a cup of what he thinks might be coffee, a window showing a blue sky, and an easy chair, the kind dragged into a hospital room for the comfort of someone who is there very, very often.

In the chair is Lysandre, and Lysandre is asleep.

Augustine watches him, and he suspects he might be smiling.

The nurse comes in and announces, "It's twelve o'clock midday, and it's time to -" And then she stops short, a proper smile crossing her face at her patient awake and aware, and Augustine blinks at her in what he hopes is a friendly way.

"Ooh, you're awake! Welcome back, Professor," she grins, "You look full of energy today!" She reaches across him to shake Lysandre awake, and he starts upright, the beginning of a frown crossing his face.

And then he sees Augustine, and the frown turns into a smile, and Augustine is being buried in a hug, and all he can do is blink but he's home, this time, he's home.


	2. The Sky Is Blue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter warnings: description of severe injury.

It takes a little while for Lysandre to actually let go of him, and when he does finally draw back, his blue eyes are damp. He's smiling, though, and Augustine suspects it's the first time he's smiled in a very long time; it's now December and the last he remembers, it was mid-October.

"Hi," Lysandre whispers, and reaches up to wipe his eyes. "Augustine - oh Arceus, I've missed you -"

He's being kissed again. It's nice. He wishes he could feel it.

Lysandre sits back and exhales, peers into his face. "Can you speak?"

Augustine's silence is his answer, although not for lack of trying. He isn't sure if his own eyes grow damp; he wants to tell Lysandre that he's okay, that he's here now, that his voice kept him afloat.

As if he expected it, Lysandre merely nods. "Alright. Alright, we'll try something different - how about blinking twice for 'yes' and three times for 'no'? If that's okay, blink twice."

That much he can manage, and with what would be a profound sigh of relief if not for the fact that he's pretty sure there's a tube in his throat, he blinks twice, quickly.

What comes next is a short but thorough session of questioning. Could he speak? (No, but able to confirm it this time.) Could he move? (No, not at all.) Was he in pain? (No.) Could he feel anything? (No, and Arceus, it's frustrating; he wants to feel Lysandre's kisses, wants to feel the hand running through his hair.) 

Did he hear Lysandre's explanation that he had been hurt, that he had been in a coma, and that he was now recovering? (Yes, he knew that much.) Had he been able to hear Lysandre read to him? (Yes, and he had wanted to add that it had been his comfort and his joy, but that much is somewhat hard to portray with just blinking.)

"I love you," Lysandre says, and his smile is sad. "Do you know that?"

Augustine blinks twice and wishes he could smile back.

The doctor arrives, along with the nurse (who busies herself with taking his vitals as the doctor pulls up a seat).

"Professor," the doctor says briskly, "Allow me to introduce myself. I'm Doctor Aliana Ancolie. I would say to call me Aliana, but baby steps, really."

He would have smiled, if he could.

The nurse finishes taking down his vital signs and shows the clipboard to the doctor, who nods. "Thank you, Mable," she murmurs, and the nurse takes her leave.

Lysandre fills her in, says what he has learned, and then rests his hand on Augustine's shoulder (he thinks, anyway, given what he can see of his arm). "Doctor Ancolie," he murmurs, "With your leave, I'd like to explain to Augustine the extend of his injuries. Augustine, is that alright?"

It's probably for the best, Augustine thinks as he blinks twice, and tries to smile. The doctor's bedside manner seems somewhat... abrupt. On the other hand, he decides as Lysandre begins to explain, there's really no nice way to tell him exactly what has happened to him.

There was an explosion at the labs, Lysandre explains quietly. One of the pieces of equipment on his floor had exploded, hurling him into the wall, starting a fire. He had broken his neck, a C5 fracture that would impair his breathing, paralyse his torso and legs, wrists and hands, with only the most minimal of movement in his arms. He had extensive burns covering much of his body. He had - Lysandre's voice catches, here - brain damage from the collision with the wall, from the lack of oxygen from smoke inhalation.

His other fractures, the scapula, a few ribs, his neck itself - they were healing well. The burns were under control, some treated with skin grafts, others beginning to heal on their own, although the scarring would be extensive.

But the spinal cord injury, the brain injury. Those would not be so easily cured.

"Augustine?" Lysandre asks gently, "Are you alright?"

The one benefit of not being able to speak, he decides, is that he can't give his automatic answer of, 'I'm fine.' He blinks, three times, in quick succession. Lysandre nods, and runs a hand through his hair, head down, expression troubled.

"Thankfully," the doctor finally says, "You're in good hands. We've been working on your case. You won't understand all of the specifics -" Augustine bristles slightly - "But we think that you will have a good chance of a relatively normal life with this treatment plan."

He blinks twice - technically a 'yes', hoping she reads it as a 'please continue'.

Aliana starts marking the details off on her fingers. "Phase one, which we've already started, since it's essential - multiple organ replacement. The explosion ruptured a lot of your internal organs. You have an artificial heart - it's just temporary until we work on something better, they use them to bridge time between heart transplants. However, you won't be _getting_ a heart transplant - just a better artificial heart. Artificial liver. Parts of your lungs have been replaced. Insulin pump - just a temporary measure until we find something better, but you are _technically_ diabetic right now. This will be an ongoing process, your digestive system in particular needs work. For now, you have a gastric feeding tube."

He wants to wince, and can't. Aliana does not appear to notice.

"Phase two - neural replacement. This is the part we're going to start now that you're conscious. It's the highest risk, but also the highest gain." Her expression is grim. "Your spinal cord was severed at the C5 vertebra. This will effectively replace it with a hyper-conductive material. This should link up with phase three - synthetic skin. We're still working on sensation, but it holds up quite well, and it can be resealed again without scars. Beats old skin, which scars up and doesn't heal. Of course, we can only do that for so much of your body."

Lysandre brushes a stray curl of hair out of Augustine's face, his expression tender. "Augustine," he starts gently, "The accident - the burns to your right arm and leg were extensive. They've - been amputated. We can use conventional prosthetics for now, but eventually we want to effectively replace them with phase four, which is the most sophisticated prosthetics ever devised." He lets his breath out slowly; Augustine notes absently that he hasn't shaved this morning. "They'll link up with the new neural network, they'll have the synthetic skin - they'll be almost completely realistic once they're done. Better than realistic. You'll be so much stronger."

His gaze lowers. "It will only work on the new limbs, though," he continues softly. "But - your other arm and leg, they'll still be paralysed. Unless we replace them as well, and then you'll be able to live a completely normal life."

Augustine closes his eyes.

They're life-saving and life-enhancing measures. He understands this, he respects this. But artificial organs, artificial limbs, artificial skin... what will be left of him?

It occurs to him that this at least explains why Lysandre never reached out to hold his hand. He no longer has it.

His life, his old life, his life as he knew it - that ended when the explosion struck. He knows that, now. Perhaps he was, strictly speaking, still alive - but he knew that he would now forever divide time into two, pre-explosion and post-explosion, and the person he was now was not the person he once had been.

He's in mourning, mourning for his own life.

"Augustine?" It's Lysandre's voice again, gentle, quiet. "We'll get through this. I promise. This facility is one of the best private hospitals in the world - the labs have had a contract with them for communication technology, and they'll do anything they can to ensure you can live a normal life again."

If he manages to shed a tear, he can't feel it. And he mourns.

 

There is a lot of work to do.

He will have to learn to move his head, move what he can of his arm. The injury, Lysandre explains, means that he should still be able to lift and bend his arm, even if his wrist and hand does not work the way he needs them to. At the moment, this complete paralysis, this complete lack of sensation, is most likely a result of his brain damage.

He will have to work to learn to communicate again, to find some way to compensate for his damaged vocal cords. Yes and no questions are more communication than he's been able to give for over a month and a half, but it's definitely not sufficient in the long term. Once they replace his right arm, he'll be able to write; if they replace both, he could use sign language. With his mostly-paralysed left arm, he could use a computer mouse and an on-screen keyboard, or slowly type.

He will have occupational therapy, learn to function as a human again. Learn to feed himself, to move from place to place, to dress himself. Perhaps, if he works hard at it, he will be able to live something approaching normal, be able to be a shadow of the person he used to be.

He will have the other kind of therapy, fighting brain damage and trauma, finding a way to learn to live with himself and what has become of him. He will face nightmares, he will face depression. He will face hard, hard times.

The explosion has nearly ended his life. He will have to fight, and fight hard, to regain it.

Lysandre does not leave his side, and at night, he falls asleep with the knowledge that he is close by.

His old life is gone. It is time to see what remains.


	3. Solstice in Solitude

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter warnings: Suicidal ideation, mention of past self-harm.

It starts very slowly.

He had woken up on the fourth of December, a Wednesday.

On Friday, he manages to smile.

It's not in response to much. He wishes he could say that it was in response to seeing a loved one, or after they had come up with some breakthrough, or because he was happy and secure in himself. It had actually been Lysandre reading the paper out loud, reaching the letters page, and snorting at the pun someone had written in, and Augustine had smiled.

A pun in the letters to the editor, apparently, was what it took for his lips to move for the first time since mid-October.

By Sunday, he has some decent expressions. He can move his eyes, blink, wink, and roll his eyes, smile and frown, and wrinkle his nose. He can, clumsily, move his mouth, sound words out; when Lysandre kisses him, he can kiss back.

He entertains himself by flirting with the nurse, Mable, with smiles and winks. She laughs, Lysandre rolls his eyes with a smile.

His throat doesn't work right any more to make sounds, even if he can move his lips.

The next breakthrough is the next day, awakening on Monday morning with his head tilted towards Lysandre. It takes much of the day to work out how to move his head consciously, but by dinnertime (Lysandre's dinnertime, anyway, he's still being fed through a gastric tube), he can turn his head from side to side and his world, his room, has expanded significantly.

He can see the flower box in the window, although it appears they're several floors up, and the rest of the view is simply buildings with the sky peering through. He can see the picture on the wall to his left as well as the one in front of him, and he can see the collection of colourful cards set on top of a shelf.

Lysandre spots him staring at them and sets down his dessert; fetches them to read them out loud to him.

They're from his parents, from Diantha, from his coworkers. No one is forgotten. But, he realises with the slow, creeping sensation of ice down his spine, while the cards are there, Lysandre remains the only visitor he's had.

They haven't even come to see him.

Augustine's brow furrows, and he turns his head to Lysandre, mouthing the word, 'Visitors?'. Lysandre hesitates.

Then he sets his hand on Augustine's shoulder again, squeezes reassuringly. (He can't actually feel it, but he does see the way the muscles of Lysandre's forearm contract.) "Augustine," Lysandre starts cautiously, "This hospital - it does a lot of, ah, unorthodox and upcoming research. You haven't been secreted away from beneath their noses," he adds hastily, "But it requires clearance to be here. I have clearance through my connections with Fleur-de-Lis. Your family, though - I've been keeping them up to date, but they can't actually visit."

Augustine is silent, because of course he is. He turns his head away.

He hears Lysandre sigh. "I'll ask them to send some videos. It may lift your spirits to see their faces."

Nodding is still a little too difficult (the movements for up and down are rather different from side to side), so he turns his head back to face Lysandre and blinks twice for 'yes'.

He misses them. He misses his twin, his other half. He misses his parents. He wants his mother to kiss his forehead and tell him he'll be okay. He wants to be reassured, he wants to be okay for them.

He still can't cry.

It's slow, so slow. It's the middle of December by the time he can move an arm reliably (the left, somewhat lacking enough of his right to do much with it). He can now lift his arm, stiff and heavy and feeling like it's made of lead, like it's not attached properly, wrist flopping uselessly, fingers dangling. Lysandre finds a brace for his hand and wrist to keep it stiff enough to poke at a keyboard, fitting it over the pressure sleeve to protect his fragile and burnt skin, and he has his speech back.

The first thing he types when Aliana, the doctor, lifts his hand on to the modified keyboard is to look at Lysandre and type, 'I love you'.

Lysandre cries, a little. He wants to, as well.

Words are freedom. Words are everything. He has a modified tablet that he can position under his remaining hand, poking at letters and words, regaining communication and freedom. Lysandre sets up a text-to-speech program, and that cuts out the time-consuming task of poking at a sentence, then Lysandre, or Aliana, or Mable, or his physiotherapist Celosia taking it off him to read what he had typed.

Lysandre is reading the newspaper to him some time on the sixteenth of December, when he suddenly jerks upright. "I had an idea," he blurts out, dropping the paper on the bed. "Augustine, your Holo Caster was burnt out in the fire, but I still have mine, obviously, and your family still have theirs. They store messages for a little while - we can reconstruct your voice from old recordings, then integrate that with the text-to-speech function."

He's not smiling, but his eyes are bright and wide and intense, the familiar look when he's had a wonderful idea written on his face.

"It will still be text to speech right now, you'll still have to type. But it'll be _your_ voice, not some machine's, and eventually we may be able to eventually integrate it better - you'll be able to, well, speak by moving your mouth." There's an excited flush on Lysandre's pale freckled cheeks; Augustine sees his hands twitch, as if itching to get them on a Holo Caster right now. "What do you think?"

Augustine manages a smile, and types, 'It sounds good. What will it sound like?'

"Like speech." Lysandre sits back, clearly pleased with himself. "Like natural speech. You won't be able to sing songs - unless you have some of those recorded on the Holo Caster - but there should be enough on there that we could digitally reconstruct your voice. Intonation and everything. Any sound you made - laughter, sounds like 'hmm', things like that - you'll be able to make."

If Augustine could feel his face, he would be sure it just went warm. Hiding a smile, he types out, 'Birthday conversation'.

Lysandre very much does flush. "Oh. Ah, yes. You'll be able to make those kind of sounds too," he says, and ducks his head. "Er, maybe we should save that for, ah, later upgrades."

Augustine raises an eyebrow, and grins. He's not really sure just how much they'll be able to do, well, ever again, but at least he can still fluster Lysandre like old times.

These days, Lysandre sits on his left. Augustine raises his arm and drops his useless hand in Lysandre's, turns his head to watch Lysandre stroke the numb limb. His smile has faded, his expression is lost, thoughtful, pensive.

Speech is a start.

He just hopes it'll be enough.

 

Augustine spends solstice in hospital, the hospital staff decorating the room with gentle glimmering fairy lights and metallic silver and gold garlands, evergreen boughs and twinkling jewel-coloured baubles.

This is the second time he hasn't spent it with his family. The first time, he was in Sinnoh and able to spend time with them via video chat; this time, it's with Lysandre setting up a play list of recordings of them.

There's one of his father carrying the camera around the greenhouse set in the small Couriway garden, showing off his prize tamato, rawst, and bluk berry plants - all growing well in the shelter of the greenhouse, his reassuring voice narrating from behind the camera as he goes.

His mother takes her recording out to Vallée Étroite Way, where Augustine spent so much of his childhood playing. It's a peaceful video, just her voice noting the Pokemon scrambling around despite the light snow falling, the sound of a breeze, and, once, a shot of her gloved hand as she brushes some snow off the camera lens.

Diantha is the only one who records face to face. She's in Unova right now, unable to avoid her contracted appearance, and she appears in her hotel room with a smile on her face. She looks tired but reassured, explaining that Lysandre had been sending her daily emails with updates. She tells him that she loves him, and that she'll visit as soon as she can get back to Kalos and get clearance for the hospital, and that he'd better hurry up and get better as soon as he can.

The entirety of the lab staff send in a recording of their own, a tour to see how the garden is looking (mercifully unaffected by the fire, he's told, which largely burnt out the top floor only), focusing on the Pokemon cheerfully playing amidst the grass, trees, and stream. If he could still cry, he would have, when Sophie nudges Artemis and shows the Garchomp the camera, and the dragon promptly gambols over and licks the lens, and he can almost feel it, as real as a kiss.

He's smiling.

He misses them, so much.

Augustine can smell things, these days. The solstice dinner that Lysandre eats in his room, away from his own family, smells divine. There's music playing; the main lights are dimmed and the fairy lights send bright little sparkles through the room.

The television mounted to the ceiling gets a workout as he and Lysandre watch a recording of a musical, and then an old favourite movie (The Pyroar King, of course), and Augustine reclines back against the pillows and blankets, pressure sleeve-covered hand resting in Lysandre, trying hard to focus on the movie and not on the disconcerting sight of one and a fifth legs covered by the blankets.

Augustine sleeps well that night - if nothing else, he's been sleeping well - with Lysandre stretched out beside him, breathing easily.

They get back to work. By the twenty-third, his new text-to-speech program is complete. Lysandre is out at the labs today, and he remains quiet, remains silent until he returns, wanting his first words that he'll be saying with his own voice to be for him alone.

Lysandre returns a little after six in the evening. Augustine smiles, and types, and his own recorded voice comes out of the tablet - 'Hi, Lys. How was your day?'

It's such a normal, everyday thing to say, nothing profound, nothing ground-breaking. But he desperately needs some normalcy, he needs to feel like Augustine and not a broken lump of flesh and artificial parts, he needs to pretend that everything will be alright.

Lysandre doesn't respond immediately, just gazes at him like he's never seen him before. And then he's moving over to hug him, pull him in close, Augustine clumsily lifting his remaining arm to hug back, hearing Lysandre sniffing back tears.

He kisses Augustine, hard. "I thought I'd never hear your voice again," he whispers shakily as he draws back, and kisses him again. "When the doctors told me about the extent of your injuries - that you might never wake up, and that if you did, you might not be the same person any more, and that if you were, you might never be able to communicate or speak again... I thought I had lost you, Augustine."

Lysandre sits back, rests a hand on Augustine's cheek.

"I thought I had lost you, but you're here. You've fought so hard, you've defied all the odds. You're alive, you can speak, next year, you may be able to move again. You're here."

Augustine can't bear the look on Lysandre's face, hope and joy and exhaustion and pride all mixed together so thoroughly he can't tell where one emotion ends and the next begins. His uncoordinated, partially paralysed arm pulls him in close again, and he closes his eyes.

He's here, yes. He's here, present, in Lysandre's arms. He has his voice back, or at least a duplicate of it, a voice that is wholly dependant on being able to reach his tablet, wholly dependant on technology. He can move a little, see, hear, smell. He still can't feel much. He can't eat. In the new year, he faces the operation to replace his pathetic remains of a spinal column, will be fitted with a new artificial kidney instead of the dialysis he's currently using, will be getting the first lot of new synthetic skin over his chest and stomach, all the easier for future operations instead of constantly cutting open his burnt skin.

He's slowly being remade into something else, something that's part Augustine Sycamore and part a conglomeration of technology.

He has nightmares. When he sleeps, when he dreams, he has nightmares of burning alive. A part of him, logically, knows that the brain injury means that he retained no memory of the accident itself, but he has imagination aplenty, and it provides him with enough vivid imagery to ensure that his days are interrupted by memories of fire.

Augustine dreams of being whole and complete, of Lysandre taking him to bed, of Lysandre touching him, of Lysandre's hands warm, and then hot, and then burning, Lysandre as living flame, Lysandre burning him whole until there's nothing left.

He can't even look at him, the morning after that nightmare.

His days become audio books and movies, re-watching the videos he occasionally gets from his family, spending time with Lysandre, physiotherapy with Celosia and occupational therapy with Bryony, Mable taking his vital signs and checking that his gastric tube and oxygen tube are still in place and Aliana briefing him on his upcoming operations, Xerosic, the technology expert, taking measurements for the more conventional prosthetics he'll have to replace his right arm and leg while they make the more sophisticated replacements.

Lysandre tries to keep his mind occupied. They discuss current affairs, Lysandre reading from the paper about the events of the world. They watch theatrical productions and discuss the meanings. He's very dependent on Lysandre these days, he knows that. Lysandre, who believes that he can heal, Lysandre, who believes that he can be whole.

Lysandre, who had been by his side since he was pulled from the fire.

And Augustine thinks, sometimes, when it's night and he's alone, before Mable takes his night time vitals and gives him the medication in his IV that helps him sleep, that it would have been far kinder to just let him die.

It's not that it's a lot of effort - really, all he's doing is lying in his bed while others hurry and fuss around him. He's rolled out to the operating theatre, he's rolled out to the therapy rooms, he's rolled out, when the weather is warm enough, bundled in scarves and hats and gloves (well - glove), to the hospital courtyard for a breath of fresh air. His remaining limbs are manipulated and stretched by his therapists, a machine speaks with his voice.

It's just that it seems like far too much effort to go to someone who's fairly sure they don't want to be alive any more, anyway.

It's funny, in a way. Depression in his adolescence and early adulthood had left its physical marks in scars all over his thighs. Now he's missing one and the other is so badly burnt that the old scars have been obliterated - the evidence of his old life, the way he fought and suffered and then slowly, slowly got better no longer exists. He has lost his past, lost the way he struggled for a future.

And now the evidence of that struggle is gone, marked with more scars he'll have to fight, and fight, and fight for.

And he's so fucking tired.

Lysandre fights for him. His medical team, they fight for him too, to rebuild him, to make him better. He bears their attention with smiles and thank yous, and squashes his thoughts down, squashes them down deep within himself the desire that they had just given up on him, that they would just quietly let him die.

They've saved him. They saved him, and he should be grateful.

And so he smiles, and says thank you, and keeps it to himself that he wishes they had let him die, and he's so tired, tired, tired.


	4. Biological Machine

The human survival instinct is peculiar.

Some of the time (most of the time), Augustine wishes that he had died in the fire. Now, facing potentially life-threatening surgery and the very real prospect of death, he's finding himself... anxious, if only for Lysandre's sake.

He's already had one operation to receive new synthetic skin across his chest and stomach, held in place securely by pressure bandages until it adheres. It's the twenty-ninth of December and he's about to undergo more surgery to replace his spinal cord and the burnt skin along his back, to link up his new skin with what should be a functioning nervous system.

The complications are fairly significant. Quite aside from the significant risk of infection, surgically attaching a hyper-conductive artificial spinal cord to what actually works of his own could damage what he does have. And if that's the case, he could lose the ability to breathe.

Or the ability to live. That would be a fairly significant side effect.

The new system won't work, exactly, with his old nervous system. It won't regain him the use of his remaining arm and leg, it's keyed to only receive from his new synthetic parts. But if this works, he'll have smooth, perfect, unburned (artificial) skin wrapped around his torso, able to bend and twist at the waist, able to feel a poke in the stomach. His artificial organs can link up with the new spinal cord; new ones could be added straight in. The upgraded prosthetics he'll eventually get will move and feel and receive their signals from it.

Clumsily, Augustine drops his heavy, paralysed hand on top of Lysandre's, and watches blankly as Lysandre takes it in both of his own, squeezing gently.

They come to prepare him for the surgery, to anaesthetise him. He gives Lysandre a fleeting smile, artificial heart in his still mostly organic throat, and lets them take him away.

 

He sleeps through the new year.

Kept largely sedated so he has the chance to heal, he's aware of the passage of time in glimpses. He's fairly sure he remembers the television showing fireworks off Prism Tower, knows that Lysandre has rarely left his side, but it's not until early afternoon on the first of January that he can conclusively say that he's conscious and aware again.

He feels heavy, strange. He feels achy. He feels, and that's what makes him go from half-aware sleepiness to full alertness.

Augustine lifts his arm and bumps it clumsily against Lysandre's knee, the only part he can reach. Lysandre starts upright and smiles, and retrieves his tablet. "How do you feel?" he murmurs, positioning the tablet under Augustine's hand.

'I feel.' It's not much of a description, but he's smiling. Lysandre will know what he means.

Lysandre is smiling as well, pressing a kiss to Augustine's lips. "Welcome back," he whispers before sitting back up again. "And happy new year."

Augustine pushes a smile to his lips. 'It's starting well already.'

Nodding, Lysandre helps raise the bed up. "I've spoken to the doctor," he says as he busies himself with the bed control, "You should be able to take the bandages off tonight. A nice new torso." Smiling in a somewhat embarrassed way, he adds, "Er, I should add that you won't, er, have nipples. Or a navel. We can add those later, just for cosmetic purposes, but it will look... odd for a little while."

Augustine glances down at his wrapped chest, and nods once. 'I can be a Barbie for a bit.' It'll definitely be odd, no mistake about that, but frankly, he misses having, well, functioning skin.

There's a smile on Lysandre's face, and he says no more about Augustine's new and improved torso. They settle in to watch a movie; Lysandre settled on the bed beside him with his arm around Augustine's shoulders, the weight of his arm solid and present and _there_.

Lysandre is eating dinner when Aliana arrives with Mable in tow. "Well, let's get you all unwrapped!" Mable exclaims, and Aliana prompts him to sit up, or at least to try.

He needs a little help. But soon, he's sitting unassisted, only his heavy, useless leg remaining uncooperative in its wrapping of pressure bandages.

They undo the velcro straps wrapped around his back and shoulders first, then the ones around his waist. And then, like cracking open a nut to reveal the meat inside, they peel it off.

It's strange, having bare, exposed skin again.

He can tell that the room is warm, can tell that there's now an absence of pressure where it once was, pressure he actually misses. It's more in an intellectual way - he can sense the warmth, but his new body has no reaction to it. He suspects cold would be much the same way - the knowledge of cold without discomfort or without producing goosebumps.

It's very plain skin. No nipples and no navel, as Lysandre had warned him, but also no pores, no freckles, no hair. Just a disconcertingly smooth surface stretched over a smooth, sculpted, flat chest.

He frowns.

Aliana checks him over, does a few sensitivity tests, then gives him a shirt and takes her leave. Giving Augustine a wink, Mable takes his vitals and leaves as well. Lysandre closes the door after them and returns to his side, squeezes one shoulder.

Wordlessly, he gestures to the tablet, and Lysandre slides it over to him.

'Why is my chest flat?'

Lysandre blinks once, and then a proud smile spreads across his face. "It was my idea. Given your injuries, it'd be unsafe for you to keep binding. It would be hard to tell when you had been wearing it too long, it would be hard to get on and off, all of that. So, when they were, well, rebuilding your chest, they re-sculpted it."

Augustine does not answer immediately, hand resting limply on the tablet. He's staring down at himself, at the flat chest he now had. Fleetingly, he thinks of the colourful collection of binders he has at home, the ones he may never wear again.

He could donate them, he supposes, donate them to young trans men and other nonbinary people who need them, now that he doesn't need his…

"You'll get to love it," Lysandre continues warmly, "When you're better, we'll go to the beach, you can go shirtless; it will be liberating, finally getting your body the way it should be."

'Thank you.' He smiles fleetingly, then nods to the shirt. 'Can you help me put that on?'

Lysandre helps him pull his uncooperative arm through the sleeve, easing the fabric away from the pressure bandage when it catches, then around his shoulders and to the front. It fastens with velcro, something he can manage, albeit with difficulty. Dressing himself is still something he's working on, really.

He's cooperative enough, smiling, commenting when his hand is free that the shirt is nice.

But he's still looking down at himself, and he still frowns.

Lysandre hadn't even asked.

 

On the sixth, he's freed from daily dialysis with a new artificial kidney, linked in directly to his new nervous system. On the ninth, the old insulin pump is replaced with a new model that can measure out the amount he'll need as well as distribute it, only the smallest of ports on his lower abdomen, near the gastric tube, as evidence.

On the thirteenth, he's fitted with the first of his new limbs - a new right arm. This is just a conventional prosthetic, with moulded fingers that can be fixed in different positions (with help), but the improved limbs he'll have later have a few kinks to still be worked out, and this is better than nothing.

He gets Lysandre to mould his fingers around a pen, and spends the afternoon drawing. It's nice.

At one point, he discovers that even a marker goes on to his new skin easily and wipes off just as easily. A very surprised Lysandre walks in one evening to find Augustine grinning at the brand new coconut bra and lei he's drawn on himself. The next day, it's a lacy bra and navel piercing; the day after that, an elaborate wall of tattoos that had been particularly interesting to draw from upside down, the day after that, drawn-on nipple rings (and nipples), a chunky necklace, and the fuzziest snail trail he can manage to scribble.

Augustine is somewhat in desperate need to feel like a person again.

How much of him is still organic? How much of him is still real? He has a head, a few internal organs, two useless, paralysed, burnt limbs. He has most of his ribcage and vertebrae, most of his pelvis. The bones in his useless limbs, they're still his own, although they're on borrowed time - Xerosic, the prostheticist, has told him that it would be very much possible to use the new kind of prosthetic on those, as well.

He has artificial internal organs, artificial skin, artificial reinforcement in his abdomen to hold the new organs. A new arm, and, now, a new leg.

In physiotherapy, Augustine finds himself distracted by his own reflection - at his pressure bandage-covered arm and the prosthetic gripping the bars, balanced on one fake leg and one real one, braced to within an inch of its life so he can support his own weight. The shirt fastens with velcro; he has on loose shorts that Lysandre has to help with to pull over one prosthetic and one paralysed leg. Neither item is his own. The oxygen tube is in his nose, backpack carrying the tank. The burns on the side of his face are healing but have still left scars, and when he frowns, they pull oddly.

He's an amalgamation of damaged flesh and crude prosthetics and sophisticated technology. He barely feels human any more.

"What?" Lysandre says with a frown when Augustine tiredly shares this thought. "No, of course you are - what - what do you think makes a human?"

Augustine tilts his head to one side, then the other - as close as he can get to a shrug at the moment. Something that he's not, he can only presume - if there's any word that fits him, 'human' is no longer it.

'I don't know. Are cyborgs human?'

Lysandre's eyebrows rise. "While... _technically_ , yes, you would be classified as a cyborg - I don't know, I always assumed that the definition meant a human with biomechanical body parts. Or, well, whatever the biological part is - you could have cyborg Pokemon."

Augustine nods slowly, and types. 'There was a Gogoat we looked after who was given an artificial horn.'

"But you would still say it was a Gogoat, right?" Lysandre presses, "You have some artificial parts, yes - that doesn't make you less human." With a sigh, he spreads his hands out. "Look - I would say that humanity, identity - that comes from the brain. But the brain just on its own is a lump of meat, so it's the thoughts themselves that give identity. You still think, you still have your own brain, and -"

He stops; Augustine has typed in something else. 'It's damaged.'

Lysandre closes his eyes and nods once. "Okay, yes, you have brain damage. You still have your own mind. If you believe in such a thing, you still have your own soul. You're still Augustine Sycamore, just... Augustine who has been hurt, Augustine who is getting medical care to recover. What is the body, if not a biological machine?"

He smiles ruefully, and takes Augustine's hand. "The nerves send messages, the muscles contract and expand. They're attached to a stiff support in the middle, it's covered in a tough but soft surface. We can mimic that. The nerves aren't getting messages at the moment, but we can fix all that. And," he adds quietly, "Would it be so bad? To be something better than just human?"

Augustine remains silent, gazing down at their joined hands; Lysandre's perfect and strong, flawed and freckled, and his own, nerveless, wrapped in a pressure bandage, the skin beneath damaged. He does his version of a shrug again.

Lysandre sighs and wraps his arm around Augustine's shoulders. "Just - think of it this way. At the moment, we're doing purely restorative processes, right?" he explains, "But eventually, we could use enhanced processes. If we replace both legs with our new systems, we could set them so you could run for longer and more easily, or if we replace both arms, you could lift much heavier weights. You could have a heart that's fifty percent again more efficient, hearing so acute that you could hear a pin drop from the other side of Lumiose - you could be... better."

Augustine jerks away, lying down very deliberately, turning his head away. Fumbling for his tablet, he simply types, 'Make me normal. Not better', then pushes it away.

If he barely feels human now, what will he be like in the future?


	5. Clockwork Heart

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter warnings: Suicidal ideation

Mable has started frowning when she takes his vitals.

Aliana has gestured for Lysandre to follow her out of the room for a discussion several times now.

Bryony and Celosia have started giving him the easiest exercises they can think of - less walking, more sitting quietly and working on his manual dexterity.

And Augustine is sick of it.

'What is going on?' he finally snaps (as much as one can with a text to voice program, but his expression at least shows his displeasure, even if his tone doesn't) as Aliana checks him over, and she sits back, looking grim.

"Right," she finally sighs, as if unable to put it off any longer. "Do you remember how we told you that your original heart was damaged in the explosion, and you've been using a temporary replacement?"

He nods uncertainly.

She purses her lips. "If you're just interested in the facts, it's failing. Your new nervous system is interacting with it in ways that we didn't expect. Any other simple replacement will eventually face the same fate. We need a system that will be built uniquely for your circumstances."

Augustine is silent, his gaze somewhere around the vicinity of his knee under the blanket.

"Doctor Adanson is taking a special interest in your case. He's going to speak with you tomorrow." She straightens up, plucking her clipboard up from where it had been resting on the bed. "Try and get some rest."

He nods numbly, and she leaves. Lysandre is not at the hospital today, still at his own labs; the room is silent.

This is getting ridiculous. He's faced death during the explosion, faced death while in a nearly two-month-long coma, faced death with the replacement of his spinal cord. And now he faces death again, potentially, with the failure of the lump of machinery replacing his heart.

He's tired.

He's tired, and suddenly he does not want to speak to anyone, wishes they would all just leave him alone and let him die instead of stringing him along like a marionette. He feels like their pet project, sometimes - see how many artificial parts you can stick in one person while still calling them a person.

And he gets that feeling the strongest from Doctor Xerosic Adanson, resident technology expert and prostheticist.

With a sigh, he reaches for his notepad, clumsily sliding the pencil into his prosthetic grip. It's mindless entertainment, doodling, and he sits back and tries to take his mind off things.

It's not very easy.

The downside of having one prosthetic hand and one paralysed one is that it's very hard to tear out the morbid images he finds himself drawing of broken-down robots and shattered machinery. He feels like his body is becoming obsolete, with each new improvement cutting out the human and replacing it with the mechanical. Oh, Lysandre has tried his best to convince him that the technology that turned him into a cyborg doesn't make him less human, but...

But he still feels like every operation is making him less and less himself.

In frustration, Augustine drops the notepad. It bounces off the blankets and hits the floor. For a long, long moment he stares at the page it had flipped to - dark scribbled lines, nothing concrete but his feelings tangible - then gives up and lies down again.

He does not sleep.

In front of Lysandre, he smiles, he asks him about his day, he keeps a brave face. Lysandre picks up the fallen notepad, glancing at the page it had landed on. "May I see?" he murmurs, and flips to another page.

He's already looked through four or five before Augustine can reach his tablet to type in a brisk, 'No' - Lysandre had not been looking at him to see him shake his head. Guiltily, Lysandre closes it again, and sets it within reach.

"How are you going with your therapist?" he asks, as carefully as if poking a pit of Sevipers.

Augustine does his version of a shrug. 'Fine.'

He's been saying what they want to hear. He's been saying he's grateful for all the work they do, grateful for the chance to survive. He's been saying he's hopeful for recovery. He's been, in short, lying, lying, lying.

The tablet helps. It makes his voice steady and calm. There is no falsehood to be detected through tone of voice. He keeps his head down and does not meet his therapist's eye.

He keeps his head down and does not meet Lysandre's eye.

When Lysandre finally leaves that night, it's to Augustine's relief. Mable comes in to do her hourly rounds and to give him something to help him sleep, and he only just manages to smile and say goodnight.

Maybe if he's lucky, his heart (his artificial heart, his own heart has been cut out, and perhaps there's something poetic in that) will fail in the night and he won't wake up.

He wakes at seven to the minute, to Mable doing her morning rounds, and his first thought is, _Damn._

Lysandre drops by for breakfast and drinks a coffee that almost drives Augustine mad from the smell, making small talk over the morning paper.

He leaves for work. Augustine is left alone.

Mable does her rounds at eight.

Augustine stares at the movie they've put on for him and does not think.

Mable comes around again at nine.

The movie finishes playing. He watches the menu loop fourteen times before the DVD player switches to standby mode.

Mable shows up for her rounds at ten.

Augustine awkwardly flicks through a magazine and thinks of the ridiculousness of celebrity gossip. Diantha is not mentioned in its pages.

Mable starts her eleven o'clock rounds, and she brings Xerosic Adanson with her, and Augustine lets out a sigh and thinks that, at least, it's better than slowly dying from boredom.

He hasn't spoken to Xerosic, much. He knows that the technologist has been behind many of his organs, has designed the prosthetics he currently uses, and is working on the ones that will replace the conventional designs. But much of that has been behind the scenes, save for a few measurements - if Xerosic wants to speak to him directly, Augustine thinks it must be some sort of big news.

Once Mable leaves, Xerosic drags a chair up, leaning forward in eagerness. "Ah, good morning!" he smiles, his red-tinted lens (albinism, apparently) slipping down his nose. "Wonderful, you're looking bright-eyed and bushy-tailed this morning! Good, good, you'll need some of that alertness for what I'm going to tell you!"

Xerosic is, sometimes, a little much for Augustine to handle.

"Now," he presses on, "You know that your heart was damaged in the accident, and you've been using a temporary artificial one for the past several months. And," he continues, "You now know that your amazing new nervous system is causing bad interactions with it. _And_ , I can tell you now that the new nervous system means we can do all sorts of weird and wonderful experiments. Add it all up, and it means that you're going to be getting something brand new!"

Augustine nods once, cautiously, not really sure where he's going with 'something brand new'.

Whipping out his own tablet, Xerosic loads up an image, and Augustine peers at it. It looks like... well, something mechanical, something with dozens of tubes and wires running out of it. Aside from the tubes, it looks like something out of a computer.

"Isn't it beautiful?" Xerosic beams, and swipes to the next picture. This one has a rough schematic of a body, and now Augustine can see that a tube runs to its nose (or mouth, it's hard to tell with what's almost a stick figure) and another ends somewhere inside his head, with more, shaded red, reaching throughout the entire body.

Augustine smiles awkwardly and nods once.

"This wonderful toy is your new cardiovascular, respiratory, _and_ digestive system!" Grinning, Xerosic looks at him expectantly, and Augustine tries to look fascinated and not moderately disturbed. Xerosic seems to buy it; at any rate, he continues.

"This baby is your new engine - there'll be a port under your collarbone to pump fuel in, and it'll carry all your vital bits and pieces of information - oxygen, nutrients, all those things - all over your body. Its cooling system will run to your nose for oxygen intake and ventilation, and into that skull of yours to keep your brain oxygenated. It'll be fully integrated with your new organs - we can hook them up directly for faster processing speeds - you won't need to carry around an oxygen tank, we can take out the gastric port and you won't need to eat, sleep, _anything_. It's a masterpiece of efficiency!"

Augustine stares at the blanket, his gaze unfocused. An engine - a port for fuel - ventilation. Processing speeds. He won't need to eat, he won't need to sleep.

'Why?' he finally asks.

Xerosic frowns. "What do you mean, 'why'? This will make you the most efficient in Kalos! The resources it'll save - no need for messy digestive systems, you won't have trouble breathing, you'll face no risk of bleeding. You'll be _perfect_."

Augustine does not look at him. He can't quite cry any more, but right now, he wants to do nothing but. 'I don't want to be perfect.'

Xerosic makes a sound that's almost a 'tch'. "We'll see," he says flippantly, and straightens up. "I'm due to call Lysandre soon. What, exactly, should I be telling him?"

'That I said no,' he types, and wishes that the voice program at least conveyed the sick anxiety making him feel more leaden than usual.

Rolling his eyes, Xerosic leaves.

Mable comes by for the midday rounds.

He's left to his own devices, more or less, for the rest of the afternoon. Half watching movies, half staring at the ceiling, the time passes in skips and jumps, taking in very little, trying not to think, trying not to exist. He has nothing scheduled, nothing to do. When Lysandre arrives some time in the evening, Augustine is almost surprised at the sound of a human voice.

"Augustine?" Lysandre murmurs as he takes a seat, reaching for his still-organic hand. "I spoke to Xerosic. He said that you weren't happy."

'He wants to make me a machine', Augustine slowly types, and the brightness of his artificial voice contrasts jarringly with his listlessness.

Lysandre nods shortly. "I thought that would be the problem. I convinced him to make a modification. He didn't like it, but, well..." He shrugs. "I fund a lot of his research."

Augustine turns his head to Lysandre slowly, his expression questioning, and Lysandre only manages a sad smile.

"I convinced him to - well, two things - first, you'll be able to sleep. Second, the original design has an internal filter. I convinced him to use an external pump - it should mimic a heartbeat. The more usage it needs, the faster it will 'beat'." A sigh pushes through his lips; he lowers his gaze. "There's not much I can do about the food issue. But you'll still be able to feel your heart beat."

Slowly, Augustine turns to Lysandre, gestures to him to join him on the bed. Immediately, Lysandre does, pulling Augustine into his arms, pressing kisses into his hair.

It's a start.


	6. Luck

He hates to admit it, oh, how he hates to admit it, but things do start improving once his heart is replaced.

The new system works smoothly, he has to grudgingly admit that, and it's definitely nice being freed from the oxygen and the gastric tube and the catheter and other tubes and wires and monitors. He now only has the port beneath his collarbone, the one on his abdomen, and a cannula on his paralysed arm, and his mobility is increasing by the day.

By the end of January, Aliana declares him relatively fit. He's moved from the hospital room to one more akin to a very small hotel room and the round-the-clock care begins to ease off a little; he's still examined morning, midday, and night, but it's a little taste of freedom.

The original prosthetic arm is replaced, and he's temporarily moved back to a hospital room while he heals up from the operation, gazing at the bandages immobilising his shoulder until it's integrated enough to move. And it works superbly - fingers that he can move on his own, the full range of movements, skin that looks almost - almost - convincing. The seam where it joins the artificial skin of his chest and back is nearly invisible.

Lysandre is the picture of helpfulness. He gets Augustine anything he wants, from his own clothes (Lysandre, naturally, had a key to his apartment) to his own laptop (no wifi in the hospital, but at least he can work on papers), from proper sketch pads and pencils to a new range of DVDs to watch. They watch films and entire seasons of television, plays and musicals, and Augustine is fairly sure he has seen more television in the past two months than he has in the preceding ten years.

They have long discussions, listen to music, sit out in the courtyard when the weather permits. He receives more videos from friends and family, Diantha giving updates on her latest film over in Unova, his parents taking recordings around the house. There's even a peaceful half-hour of a camera set in the lab gardens, positioned under the tree he liked to sit at the most, letting him simply sit and watch the Pokemon playing in the grass.

This is something he needs and craves, because the rest of his time has become unbearable.

Augustine has been working closely with Xerosic, and it's an exercise in frustration. There are almost daily tests to check what would have originally been called his heart function, consultations on the replacement of his other failing organs, adjustments to his new arm so that it moves with grace and strength. Xerosic is pleased with his progress; he makes adjustments with precision.

"You're extremely lucky, you know," he murmurs near the beginning of February, sitting back. "There - try crossing your fingers again."

Augustine does so with ease, his other hand on the tablet. 'That's better. Why am I lucky? Because I survived?' He pulls a face - it had little to do with him, really, it was mostly others swooping in and remaking him.

Xerosic shakes his head and tosses Augustine a stress ball, the kind with an internal strength monitor. "Give that a few squeezes. Well, there is that - but lucky that you can receive these sorts of enhancements. Oh ho ho, look at that!" He gestures to the computer screen; the monitor in the stress ball is showing his grip strength. "That chart there - that blue line is for the average adult woman - sorry, it was the closest we could get," he adds. "And the red line above that - that's _your_ strength."

He's strong, with this hand. Augustine nods with a frown, gazing down at it, glancing at his still-organic left hand in its protective pressure sleeve. 'So I'm a lot stronger?' he types, wishing the voice recording sounded as hesitant as he feels.

"Significantly!" Xerosic beams. "Like I said, you're lucky, lucky! You have the chance to be so much better than a mere human!"

Augustine flinches.

Xerosic appears not to notice.

"Humans are biological machines, of course," Xerosic continues with a wave of one gloved hand. "But they're weird, awkward, bug-laden things. Bones can break, skin can burn or be cut. But you? You're something better than that. You're built of something better than just human flesh. I do wish you'd let us replace your left arm and leg!"

Tucking his left arm in close as best he can (his left leg, paralysed, pays no attention to his distress), Augustine shakes his head, then grudgingly moves it back up to the tablet. 'I'm sorry. I'm still not interested. There's not enough left of me to want to go about chopping more off.'

"But they'd be completely functional." Xerosic stares at him through the red glasses. "Why haul around that useless lump of flesh you call a left leg when you can get a brand new one? It's not like it's _doing_ anything."

He does not answer. It would take more time and effort than he feels it's worth to type out exactly why he wants to keep his useless arm and leg as they are.

Xerosic shrugs, both hands spread wide. "Well, Lysandre's requested that we work on integration of your voice next - it'll be controlled by movements of your lips and tongue. You'll need to practice quite a bit before it's coherent, of course, but you can still use the tablet in the mean time. Of course," he adds thoughtfully, "We could just add a chip in your brain that will allow your voice to come from a speaker in your throat..."

'The first idea, please,' he types hastily, and Xerosic manages a chuckle.

"Of course. Off you go, then! I'm sure you have better things to be doing than talking to me."

Uneasy, Augustine offers him a cautious smile, sets the tablet in his lap, and wheels himself out.

 

Xerosic is right about one thing - he's definitely not speaking coherently straight after the operation.

The system they're using isn't quite used to Kalosian. The way Augustine shapes his words is actively against him; he'll mouth something and it'll come out as something else entirely, and he has to struggle to find the shapes that make the sounds he's aiming for.

It's an intelligent system, Xerosic has told him. It's more efficient than the human mouth as it is; he merely needs to adapt to it.

Speech therapy is almost embarrassing. Augustine has never been the most eloquent of people, but the random sounds spilling from his lips aren't really fit for anyone to use. He keeps his mouth shut when there are others around and only practises when he's alone; thankfully, Lysandre has been extraordinarily busy lately and he has plenty of time on his own.

It's one step at a time.

Sometimes, literal steps. Like his new right arm, the leg prosthetic he had been using is replaced as well. It functions like... a leg, and although he's still ungainly, relying on bracing to keep his paralysed and burnt left leg upright, he can walk reasonably steadily with a cane.

Augustine sits out in the courtyard in the unseasonable early February warmth and stares at his feet. The sneaker he wears are loose enough not to damage the burns on his left foot, although he's eased the shoe off his right and and is staring at his artificial toes.

There are no toenails on it. (Briefly, he considers just painting some on.) There is no hair on his leg, there are no pores or creases or scars or dry skin. The shape is right, but it looks like someone has sealed his leg in plastic, making no care to make it seem real.

He wriggles the toes, then shudders. There's definitely something about the uncanny valley with it.

With his artificial hand, he eases the sock and sneaker back on, staring dully at the fingers of that, too. Here, at least, there are fingernails (given that his hands will be more visible, in general, than his feet), but still - still, it looks like a hand belonging to a mannequin or a CGI character.

No, Augustine decides bitterly, even CGI characters these days look more realistic than he does.

He's going stir-crazy in the hospital.

He calls one of the nurses to be returned to his room, not actually permitted to wander the corridors on his own, flops on the bed, and drags over a book, flipping it to the page he was up to.

But his attention is elsewhere today - the brief retreat outside has driven home just how confining the hospital is; he's walking better and now he desperately wants to be out in the streets of Lumiose City, or in a proper park (the courtyard has some garden beds around the edges, but most of it is paved), or walking his favourite routes. He wants to be at his parent's home in Couriway, helping his father in the greenhouse. He wants sunshine and living things to remind him that he is still living, that he survived.

He wants to go back to the lab, to see the Pokemon, to see his coworkers in the flesh and not just in video messages. He wants to explore off the beaten track, seeing what new Pokemon can be found. He wants to visit forests and meadows, rivers and lakes, mountains and caves. He wants to go home, to his cozy apartment and his books and his pictures.

He wants his life back.


	7. Escape Velocity

Lysandre says that Augustine's immune system is not good enough to leave the facilities.

Augustine suspects Lysandre is lying.

He wants to leave. He's desperate to leave. He just wants to walk around the city and feel like a human being again.

But Lysandre says no, and Augustine is starting to resent him for it.

He starts watching, paying attention. The doctors and nurses walk around without looking up, caught up in their own thoughts. They pay little attention to Augustine, watching quietly through a crack in his door; they barely realise that he's there.

If he can get his hands on a lab coat, like so many of them wear, they may not even realise he's there.

He's grateful so many of the staff here read him as male. If he wears one of the more fitted shirts he usually reserves for more feminine days, if he compensates for his newly-flat chest with a few socks (and isn't that an interesting reversal?), if he pulls his hair out of his face into a ponytail to show the softer lines of his jaw, then yes - it's possible they won't even notice who walks amongst them.

Still, he would like a lab coat.

The timing will be everything. He watches and listens, he waits and plans. The morning is actually the best - after they come to wake up him at seven, he's largely left alone for at least an hour or two before morning therapy sessions. One of the upsides of constant boredom, he supposes - they won't miss him for at least a few hours.

Any later, and he runs the risk of being found out too early. They could catch him at lunch time, or during the afternoon appointments. Lysandre, on the days when he's at the lab, tends to arrive in the late afternoon, spending the evening with him. And after the evening rounds, he's generally far too tired to do much of anything.

It _must_ be morning.

There's a set of clothing hidden away in a cupboard - a pair of slacks, a fitted shirt with a reasonably low-cut collar. There's a pair of socks, carefully taped to the inside of the shirt; there's a stretchy headband and a hair tie. There's a jacket and a pair of gloves for outside - nothing for it, he'll simply have to carry it with him, but it's already February and he would rather not freeze.

Now he just needs the lab coat, and the opportunity.

The lab coat, when the time comes, is actually easy. Every day, the laundry is picked up; he opens his door with his hamper ready, offering the orderly a smile.

"Here, I've got it!" he says brightly (his control of his voice is much better, now), using his artificial arm to hoist it up - a plus for enhanced strength, he supposes. And with his clumsy paralysed leg, he gently kicks over the broom attached to the cleaning station. It takes the bucket and several bottles with it.

"Oh, oops! Clumsy me!"

The orderly waves off his apologies and bends to pick up the scattered items. And as quick as he can, Augustine empties his hamper, scoops up someone's discarded lab coat with the hand holding the handle, and lowers it again, stuffing the lab coat inside.

With some luck, it won't be too disgusting.

He would laugh, but it would give the game away, somewhat.

The lab coat is fine. There are some scuffs on the sleeve, but nothing resembling any sort of body fluid or the like. He sets it in the cupboard with his other clothes.

He's going to do it tomorrow morning, and if he puts extra effort into practising his walk in physiotherapy that afternoon, Celosia makes no comment of it.

Lysandre visits in the evening. Augustine, again, asks if they can perhaps go out on the weekend. Lysandre, again, says no, not yet, not yet.

He leaves, Mable comes by, and Augustine is sent off to sleep.

It's seven in the morning. Mable has come to wake him up. He makes a show of it, grumbling to himself. They let him go shower, and he takes his clothes with him.

And then he steps back into his room and promptly changes into the ones he had set aside, pulls back his hair, shrugs on the lab coat with only minor difficulty, shoves his feet in his sneakers, scoops up the coat and gloves with his bad arm, and sets out the door as casually as he can.

The courtyard is four floors below, and so, he knows, is the exit. Augustine walks to the elevator, head down, and presses the button for the ground floor. No one stops him. No one blocks his path. The signs point in large friendly letters to the courtyard to his left and then left again; the exit is to his left and then the right. He's seen the light from the doors when being wheeled back from the courtyard, he remembers.

There is no security guard. The receptionist is busy on the phone. Augustine does not look up as he walks straight through the doors and out of the hospital.

It's easy, now. There's a parking lot, only a few cars this early on, to his left, and more of the grounds on his right. After a moment of thought, he chooses the parking lot, pulling off the lab coat, dragging on his coat and gloves, stumbling a little on the uneven flooring but still managing to find his way to the driveway that leads in and out.

Augustine carefully edges around the boom gate, and steps out into an ordinary Lumiose street, and breathes in freedom.

Freedom!

(The first thing he does is pull the socks out of his shirt, puts his hair back the way it used to be. He wants to walk free and walk as himself.)

He has been walking for a few minutes before doubt sets in. Perhaps he isn't as well as he could be; if he collapses or has some other medical emergency, he's not sure he would be able to tell anyone where the hospital is. Finding his way back, certainly - he has been careful to note down landmarks - but if he's unconscious, what good would it do?

He doesn't even know its name.

Still, it's nice, being outside. He sees an Espurr sunning itself in someone's garden, and Fletchlings in the trees. There's a Furfrou with a very fancy cut behind a fence, wagging its tail furiously at the sight of him; there's a slight breeze and it's not nearly as cold as he expected for the middle of winter.

In fact, it doesn't look like winter at all, given the red and gold leaves on the trees, browning ones crunching underfoot. There is no snow; there is none of the stillness and hush that he recognises of winter, even in Lumiose City.

If he didn't know better, he would almost suspect it was autumn, and not February at all.

Uneasy, he continues on on foot. He can hear traffic ahead, a busier road, and that will mean people, and perhaps shops and newspapers.

(But the newspaper Lysandre had brought in the day before very clearly said the ninth of February, 2014...)

He's somewhere in the suburbs. There's a metro station, but only a small one; there's a stand with newspapers and magazines, cigarettes and drinks, a scant few Pokeballs and potions. There are a few fast food places. There's a Pokemon Centre, the kind that's little more than a room for the nurse, a few shelves of potions, a place to sit, and -

He doesn't have any money. But Pokemon Centres always have a free daily paper for trainers.

The nurse is busy chatting away on the phone. She pays him little attention as he sits awkwardly and reaches for the paper, his head down, and the first thing he notices is the date.

It's Sunday, yes, he expected that much. It's Sunday, the twelfth of October, 2014.

October, not February. It's a full eight months later than he had been told, a full...

A full year since the accident, because he can remember, remember like deja vu, remember being pleased as he finishes a paper with a deadline of the thirteenth of October the day before it's due the day of the explosion, as clear as the date in front of him now.

Numbly, he glances at the front page. There isn't a great deal of trainer news; the free paper is only a few pages thick. The front page has an article about the upcoming Kalos Juniors tournament, and at the bottom, where they list the stories detailed inside, is a simple headline saying, _Laboratory fire anniversary recognised_.

There is an article on the second page about Diantha taking on challengers at the Battle Chateau. Lysandre had said she was in Unova; but then, Lysandre had also said that it was February.

The article he wants is on the third page. It's not very long, a few paragraphs only. It notes that it's the first anniversary of the tragic fire that had burnt out half of the Pokemon Laboratory on Southern Boulevard, that the laboratory was, as of late July, fully restored and open for business again, that Professor Zoe Olivier was taking applications for next year's starter program and was pleased with the progress of that year's trainers, and that she was, of course, new to the position of regional Professor but she was eager to do her very best, although it would be hard to fill in her predecessor's shoes after the untimely death of Professor Augustine Sycamore at the age of thirty-three in the fire that had nearly destroyed the labs...

The paper drops from his fingers.

He wants to be shaking, he wants to be crying. He wants his chest to heave as he panics and hyperventilates. He wants to _react_ , he wants to do more than just sit frozen in his chair, staring at a piece of paper at his feet.

But all he does is pick up the paper with his mechanical fingers, and walks away with his head low.

The world outside thinks he's dead. Lysandre, for whatever the reason, has carefully maintained the facade of it being eight months earlier than it actually is. He doesn't know why Lysandre has done it, what purpose he had to fake Augustine's death and secret him away in a mysterious hospital.

But he is going to find out.

How could he have been so stupid? His only contact with the outside world, the newspapers, had been provided by Lysandre. How could he have been so foolish? Lysandre had _told_ him, flat out, that it was easy to recreate people's voices from Holo Caster messages; the videos from his family and friends rarely showed them speaking to the camera. It would be easy, too easy, to film a video and to fake a message to play over it.

He had watched movies and recordings of television shows, but no live television. He had access to his laptop, but no internet. His existence since waking up has been one lie after another.

And he doesn't know _why_.

Had Lysandre done something to him, blocked out his memories of nearly eight months, made him believe he had been in a coma for only a handful of weeks? Had he been asleep all that time? What had happened to him? And why?

Why?

Augustine is approaching the hospital now. He walks straight past the boom gate, straight through the parking lot, not even bothering to snatch up the lab coat he had let fall during his great escape, straight through the doors again.

The receptionist, paying attention this time, exclaims. Lysandre, leaning against the desk and talking in a low, frantic voice, straightens up so sharply Augustine hears his back pop.

"Augustine?" Lysandre asks, and his voice cracks.

With one artificial hand, Augustine slams the paper against Lysandre's chest. "I want to know," he says, his voice artificially steady, "Why you let everyone believe I was dead."

"Augustine, wait -!" Lysandre starts, but Augustine is already walking away, making for his courtyard, walking away, away, away.


	8. Emet

He sits, huddled on the stone bench at the far end of the courtyard, and waits for Lysandre to come to him.

It's a good few minutes before he does, trailing behind Xerosic. Xerosic looks smug, Lysandre looks frustrated and sad and apologetic; he's practically wringing his hands, rocking back on his heels in a frenetic stress stim.

_Good,_ Augustine thinks viciously.

The paper in Lysandre's hand is creased.

"Everyone thinks I'm dead," Augustine says.

"Yes," Lysandre says quietly.

He manages a smile; it's sardonic. "One year today. Well, if nothing else, I can assure you that I didn't plan it. I had no idea what the date was, given that you had been lying and saying it was February."

"I did," Lysandre says, and his voice cracks.

Augustine laughs. "It was a good deception, I'll give you that. Still, it's lucky I have brain damage. I might have started putting the pieces together earlier."

Lysandre is crying, Augustine notes absently, quiet tears running down his cheeks.

"So the boss says that you believe he faked your death, huh?" Xerosic says, and his voice is casual. "Not a bad deduction."

Augustine glances between them, then ventures, "'The boss'? I thought Fleur-de-Lis just had dealings with the hospital."

Xerosic is pulling a glove off, tucking it into one pocket. "Oh, no, this isn't a hospital," he says in an almost absent voice. "It's a lab, used exclusively by Fleur-de-Lis. I mean, I'm sure a _few_ of the people here have medical degrees, but really, we're mostly engineers and programmers. You know, the second floor is where we did most of the Holo Caster testing?"

He can feel the artificial heart in his chest beating faster. _Increased processing demands_ , he remembers vaguely. Anxiety, most likely.

"What have you been doing to me?" he asks slowly, his mechanical hand tightening on the edge of the seat. "Am I some sort of - of test subject? Stick prosthetics and mechanical bits on someone everyone thinks is dead so it doesn't matter if you do actually kill me?"

Xerosic glances back at Lysandre. "He doesn't know?" he says in a tone of wonderment, "Oh ho ho, this will be interesting to explain! Do you want to do the honours, or shall I?"

Lysandre shakes his head helplessly. "I'll do it," he says hoarsely. "I just - need some time." He takes a step forward, one hand - it's trembling - held out to him. "May I sit down next to you?"

"No," Augustine says, and stubbornly shifts so that he's sitting in the middle of the bench, with no room for anyone on either side.

He nods, a jerk of the head. "I suppose I deserve that," he mutters. "Okay. I - just give me a moment. I'm sorry. It's been a bad day."

"Because I found out that you had been lying to me ever since I woke up?"

"Because it's been a year since the accident." Carefully, Lysandre kneels on the ground itself, long legs folded beneath him. "It's - hard to deal with, even looking at you now, right here in front of me. I thought my life would have ended too, that day."

Xerosic glances down at Lysandre, and there's a smidgeon of pity there. "You know," he tells Augustine, "He means that literally. Not everyone runs in to a burning building with only their Gyarados for protection. Whatever he's done over the past year, at least remember that."

Augustine turns, looks at Lysandre properly with his red head bowed. "You ran into the lab?" he frowns, "Even though it was on fire?"

"I have a powerful _Water_ -type, Augustine," he says, voice anguished. "And the one I loved was in the middle of a fire - do you really think anything could have stopped me?"

Augustine hesitates, then slides to the side of the bench. Gratefully, Lysandre takes a seat, reaching for Augustine's hand; Augustine snatches it back. "Don't touch me," he says quietly.

Lysandre nods, as if he's expecting it.

"There's some things to be said for being inside the building," he says with a rueful smile, "And that's being the first on the scene. When I first saw you, I -" His voice catches. "You weren't - you weren't dead, but you were close. Smoke inhalation, mostly. You were curled up in your chair like you were asleep."

Augustine touches his throat near the fracture site gently with the prosthetic hand; gazes at the fingers on his burnt, paralysed one. Lysandre follows his gaze, silently pleading with his eyes - _please, please understand_.

"Xerosic was right behind me. He had a..." Lysandre waves a hand vaguely. "A machine. It records brain waves, even if they person is unconscious."

"It's a great piece of technology, the Esprit Device," Xerosic says with a grin from where he's watching nearby. "I can show you how it works, if you like! There are so many applications we can use, not just recording the memories and brain waves of -"

" _Xerosic_." Lysandre cuts him off with a glare, and the pale scientist shuts his mouth. "It records brain waves, yes. Memories, thoughts. The essence of a person."

Xerosic mutters something. Augustine does not catch it. "So," he says slowly, uncertainly. "You recorded my brain waves? And then, what, abducted me and made everyone believe I was dead?"

Lysandre exhales, shoulders slumped like he has the weight of the world on them. "No. The paramedics came. They took you to hospital. You were - they -" He's crying properly now, his words catching, trembling, afraid. Lysandre is a tall man, tall and physically imposing. He carries himself like a leader, like the kings of old.

Now he looks like a frightened child.

"The smoke inhalation. It cut off oxygen to your brain. It was for too long, Augustine. The damage was irreversible. We - your parents, Diantha, and I - we made the decision to switch off life support. And you died, at twenty-seven minutes past three on the morning of the thirteenth of October."

Augustine stares down at his lap.

Xerosic takes over - he must, because Lysandre can no longer speak, stifling his weeping with both hands. "The Esprit Device had brain recordings, but they're pretty useless without a body to go with it, of course." He waves a hand. "You know, Fleur-de-Lis has some pretty impressive subdivisions - one of them is called the Flare Project. Are you familiar with the transhumanism movement?"

_"Would it be so bad? To be something better than just human?"_

He nods once.

"Well, that's what we are!" Xerosic waves an arm back up at the building. "What this entire facility is for. We seek to actively improve the world by ridding ourselves of our impurities, our _weaknesses_." His voice rises on the last word; Augustine jumps. "Enhanced systems, enhanced reflexes, enhanced strength. Now, Lysandre and I do have a few -"

He pauses delicately.

"- idealogical differences. He believes that enhancements must maintain and support humanity. Now I, personally, have a different view. I believe that humans are a flawed and ultimately dying race. This world has problems, and we're most of them." He pulls a face. "Eventually, I want to help create the world's inheritors. I want the world to be protected by autonomous, logical, perfect synthetic beings."

Augustine watches him. If he still had lungs, he would be holding his breath. "And where do I come in to this?" he asks, and his voice trembles.

Xerosic approaches and sets a hand on Augustine's shoulder, expression almost affectionate, almost paternal. He does not shrug it off, save to glance sidelong at Lysandre to see his reaction; Lysandre is studiously ignoring it, his eyes closed.

"You," he says sincerely, "Are the future. You are the first. Of course, you're always going to be different - the recordings from the Esprit Device, the others don't have that, and yours aren't quite complete, unfortunately. Too much damage, too much brain death already. Of course, there some experimental technology we developed just for you - the nervous system - but ultimately, you're the culmination of all our hard work."

Augustine's first reaction, to his own lasting surprise, is flattery. It's nice, he supposes, to be told that he's the future, that he's something unique in the world. But perhaps Xerosic is right in that there was too much damage, that not enough of him could be saved. He has visions of himself as Frankenstein's monster, cobbled together from spare parts, remade, a flawed brain sitting inside a perfectly constructed head.

There's a word, a word he can't bring himself to acknowledge.

"Lysandre says that you're Jewish. Are you familiar with the concept of a golem? Not the Pokemon, the being from folklore."

Augustine nods once, again. He won't think about it. He can't. "They're beings made out of clay. They have the word for 'truth' written on their head - _emet_ \- and that animates them. If you erase a letter, it becomes _met_. 'Dead'." He raises an eyebrow. "It's also a modern term for 'dumb' or 'helpless'."

Chuckling, Xerosic pats his shoulder. "Well, you're not dumb or helpless. You're the opposite, actually! You're a superb creation, really. We don't use clay, of course - we have metals, polymers, hyperconductive materials. Synthetics." He smiles, and presses one gloved finger to Augustine's forehead. "We built you, and we wrote a dead man's memories and brainwaves on your head, and now you're animated. The true golem."

"You died, Augustine." Lysandre's voice can barely be heard as it trembles and stutters; he reaches for Augustine's artificial right hand and does not let go. "You died. And we made you again. We brought you back."

"We put Augustine Sycamore's memories and brain patterns into your head," Xerosic says steadily, and he glances once at Lysandre, as if challenging him to contradict his words. "Augustine Sycamore is dead. But you? You're not him, you can't be. You're alive. You're the most superb and sophisticated android ever created. And you are so much better than he ever was."

"I see," Augustine says. He stands so abruptly he nearly loses his balance, yanks his hand out of Lysandre's - it's not hard, he's so much stronger than a human - he pushes past Xerosic.

And he runs.


	9. System Failure

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter warnings: emotional breakdowns, self-mutilation, violence

He locks himself in a bathroom.

It's not the most glamorous place, but there's a lock on the door, and he can slump heavily against the door, grab his head in his hands (or, well, hand), and scream.

He can't cry. They didn't build him with tear ducts. But he can scream, eyes squeezed tight, one working hand clutching his curls, scream until his throat would go hoarse if it wasn't mechanical.

How could he be an android? He feels human, he remembers being human. How could he be fake? He had artificial parts, yes, but wasn't he born, didn't he live and breathe and bleed?

The prosthetic hand scrabbles at the pressure bandage on his other arm.

There are no burns beneath it, no indication that there's any sort of injury to it. It's the same smooth synthetic skin as his working arm, even if his wrist and hand are limp and inoperative, unprogrammed. He squeezes and can feel the bumps beneath the fake skin, bone or metal or something else.

Rising to his feet, almost swaying, he takes three quick steps to the mirror and hits it hard enough to shatter, taking one of the largest shards and digging it into the back of his left hand.

He wants to bleed, needs to bleed. It's a familiar feeling, bleeding to feel alive, bleeding to know that there's something in him that still exists, and the scars on his thighs don't exist any more (never existed on him in the first place), but there's still the wide-eyed, pained look on his face that he knows he wore when he first took metal to skin.

The mirror shard slices open skin. There is no blood, no blood and no bones, only a thin layer of polymer muscles and the metal hydraulics beneath. He forces his fingers to curl; the hydraulics move obligingly.

_But they could have already replaced it,_ he thinks dizzily. He can feel his artificial heart pounding hard. _Xerosic had talked about it - my arm and leg -_

He wants to bleed.

He had never cut his face. Even in all his depression, he has never cut into his face. Now, he forces the glass through his cheek and lets it drop, forces his fingers inside, tears at it, rips a line from near the burn scars (burn scars?) up to his eye, and he catches a glimpse of metal in the shard of the mirror, metal beneath his skin where he had been told, had been promised that he still at least had his own head, and he screams.

He wanted to find bone. He needed to find bone, to find something of himself in there. He wanted to bleed. He needed to bleed, to feel hot, messy, human fluids running down his face.

But he finds synthetic skin and metal and he could gouge out his eyes and look inside his own skull but it doesn't matter, because just the glimpse of metal means it's real, it's real and they were telling the truth, and he's dead, he's dead and he was never alive in the first place, he's dead and has been for a year, he was never alive at all.

He curls up against the door, drags his uncooperative (inoperative?) leg to his chest, wraps his arms around them, buries his tattered face in his arms, and screams.

He wants to black out. He can't. He wants to sleep. He can't, not without whatever Mable does each night to shut him down. He wants to crash. He wants to disappear. He wants to be the dead person he's impersonating; he wants to cut out his human side and let himself be robotic and not have to feel any more.

He should have died in the fire.

(He did.)

They should have left him alone.

(They didn't.)

"Augustine?"

A voice at the door, Lysandre's voice, frantically worried.

" _I am not Augustine!_ "

The voice of a corpse, reconstructed and forced out his throat.

"Augustine, _please_ open the door!"

He scrambles away from it, scrambles over broken glass and squeezes himself into the corner. There's a mirror shard embedded in the palm of his right hand; he slams his hand down on the ground until it forces through metal bones and synthetic skin. He feels two of his fingers go numb and limp and clumsily knocks the shard away with his inoperative fingers.

There's a click as Lysandre manages to force the lock.

"Augustine?"

He does not answer, curling his shattered hands into his hair, hiding his torn face in his knees.

"Oh, Augustine, what did you do?"

Crunching of glass as Lysandre hurries to his side, reaches for him.

" _Don't touch me!_ "

"Okay. Okay, I'm moving back." Lysandre retreats to the other side of the bathroom, gives him space, stares at him like he's seeing through time.

Like he's seeing Augustine Sycamore.

"Why did you lie to me?"

Voice calm, measured, feeling brittle, hurt.

Lysandre exhales, rests his head in one hand. "I didn't - know what you'd be like. After everything, after we started to wake you up, we didn't know if you'd still remember who you were. But you did, and - I knew that telling you the truth, telling you that you - telling you what happened, it would only hurt you. Xerosic wanted to tell you straight away what you were." He bows his head. "I wanted to ensure that you'd be able to handle the knowledge. I'm sorry. I never meant for you to find out this way."

"And if I hadn't found out?" His voice is too calm. "Would you have kept lying and lying?"

Lysandre does not answer.

"You never asked," he says abruptly.

Lysandre lifts his head. "What?"

"You never asked. When I woke up. You asked if I could speak, if I could move, if I was in pain, if I could feel anything, if I had heard you explain that I had been hurt, if I had heard you read to me." He fixes Lysandre with a stare. "If I knew that you loved me. You never asked, 'Do you know who you are?'. You should have. You only assumed."

Lysandre nods once, jerkily. "I'm sorry."

"How did you do it? The deception?"

A Deerling in the headlights, Lysandre hesitates, gnawing at his lip. "I - do you - you want to know?"

He nods shortly.

Bowing his head again, Lysandre lets out a sigh. "This place is all part of a subdivision of Fleur-de-Lis," he tells his knees, voice subdued. "And everyone here works for me. We had some of our scientists coached - how to make themselves pass off as a doctor or a nurse or a physiotherapist. Oh, all except the psychologist, she actually is fully qualified. We thought you would need it."

He manages a weak smile; he does not get one in return.

Lysandre bites his lip. "There were no... actual readings. Blood pressure, temperature, that kind of thing. Mable would just pretend to record them for the sake of, well, realism. The IVs and tubes don't actually connect to anything - there are ports, but they're dead end ones. Your left arm and leg - they're prosthetics. They started out as crude ones, but we replaced both sides when you got the new ones. They just need to be activated."

"Activate them now," he says, and his voice is still so, so even.

Nodding, Lysandre slides his phone out of his pocket, turning his focus to it. "This might feel strange," he says absently as he types.

Limited sensation and the ability to move flood through his limbs. He stands, steadily, for the first time in...

For the first time ever, actually.

He opens and closes his left hand, stares at the hydraulics moving smoothly and evenly.

"I want to leave," he says.

Lysandre stares back at him. His eyes are pained. "You can't. I'm sorry, Augustine, but everyone thinks you're dead. You'd cause a mass panic."

"Augustine _is_ dead," he snarls, and then he's screaming and cannot stop. "He's _dead_! Make up your fucking mind! Either he's dead and you need to get over it and let me live my own life, or if you _insist_ that I'm still alive, let me go! Let me see my family! For fuck's sake, Lysandre, my parents think I'm dead, _my twin thinks I'm dead_ , and _you_ made them believe that for a year when you could have given them hope! I - you -"

His artificial heart is beating so fast his chest is almost vibrating.

"I can't cry!" he shouts, and it comes out as a wail. "You made me so I couldn't cry! How is that fair, how is that human? If you think I'm him, then you make it so I can cry, Lysandre!"

He crumples to his knees in the glass. He slams his palms against them, lets them dig in, pierce his artificial skin. Lysandre exclaims and leaps to his feet, grabbing his wrists; he lets him, head bowed, wanting to be weeping as Lysandre's delicate fingers pull shards and slivers from his hands.

"Okay," Lysandre says, and his own voice is heavy with tears. "Okay. Augustine, please believe me, I didn't want to believe it at first, I knew there was so much that could go wrong - but I know it's you. I know you. Your organic body - yes, it died. But _you_ , your memories, your mind, everything that makes you, you - I know you're still alive. And I swear I will make it right."

He presses a kiss against his forehead.

Augustine nods once. His head is still bowed.

Lysandre pulls the last of the glass free, then presses a kiss to his tattered palm. "I'm sorry," he murmurs, "I am so, so sorry I lied to you. I promise I will make things right. You just need to trust me -"

He snatches his hands back, then shoves Lysandre away. "How?" he snaps. "My entire existence has been a lie to you!" Rising to his feet, an inferno in his head, his voice comes out as a shout. "You have never once been honest to me! Trust you? How do I _trust_ you? You used me as an experiment, you denied me truth, over and over again, all because you couldn't get over your dead fucking lover! Why should I trust you?"

He raises his hand like he's going to strike Lysandre; lowers it. Spins around and slams his hand into the wall instead. Tiles crack. "Give me one good reason why I should trust you!"

"I made a mistake!" Lysandre is screaming too, screaming through his tears. "I fucked up and I'm sorry! I'm sorry, but I will change, I swear, I'll do it for you, I love you, please, _Augustine_ -"

_No._

It's too much, the sound of that name, in that tone of voice.

He turns and races for the door, shoving his way past Lysandre. He knows where the exit is, he can run, he can run far, far away, away from this place, away from the lies -

His legs collapse beneath him. He hits the floor hard, the already damaged skin on his face tearing further.

Lysandre's footsteps hurry up behind him, and he can't even turn to face him. "What did you do?" he grinds out through a jaw that no longer wants to cooperate, and the words come out garbled, tangled up in syllables.

"I cut your gross motor controls," Lysandre whispers as he crouches beside him. "I'm sorry. I am. I've started your sleep program. You'll be asleep in two minutes. I'm sorry. It's for your own good. I don't want you to hurt yourself."

Lysandre gathers him up in his arms, lifts him easily, limbs dangling like dead weight. He kisses his forehead.

"It's - think of it as being like sedation," he murmurs. "You need to rest. You'll feel better afterwards, when you're more calm. I'm sorry. I love you."

His senses are shutting down. His awareness is shutting down.

Lysandre holds him close, and Augustine's eyes fall shut, and he lets himself sleep.


	10. Hiccups

Full consciousness returns slowly.

There is awareness, the sense of existing. There is memory, and the memory is painful - his body freezing, no longer under his own control. There is sound - he can hear quiet conversation in the background, too soft to make out.

He can open his eyes, and does. He can turn his head, and does, finding Lysandre and Xerosic deep in conversation by the window.

There is speech. "Lysandre?"

Lysandre seems unsurprised that he's awake - well, it would be strange if he was, given that he must have been the one to switch him back on. He simply smiles sadly, pulling a seat up to the bed. "Augustine. How do you feel?"

"I can't move," he says plaintively.

It's Xerosic who nods. "We haven't restarted your gross motor program yet. If we switch it back on, will you try to run again?"

"No. I guess not." Where would he go? It has occurred to him, has occurred to him in the minutes between the return of awareness and this moment in time, that he really doesn't have anywhere he can go.

What would he family think, if he just walked in through the door? Everyone thinks he's dead.

(Because, of course, he is.)

Lysandre nods, turning to his laptop and typing something in. Like a switch, Augustine can move again, and he pushes himself up.

His hands are fixed. Now seated, he stares at his palms. He thinks he can see the very faint seams where they must have patched him up.

"Those will fade in time," Xerosic calls out when he spots where Augustine's focus is. "It's pretty clever, our synthetic skin."

Augustine nods and raises a hand to his face - it's fixed too. "Okay."

He drops his hands into his lap and stares at them.

Augustine has never really understood the phrase 'a heavy silence'. Now, he thinks he can - it's almost a tangible presence in the room, suffocating (except he doesn't have lungs, does he?) and stinging (but his sense of touch is dulled; he can't quite feel pain or he would have seriously reconsidered stabbing himself in the face with a shard of a broken mirror).

"What happens next?" he finally says.

"What do you want to happen next?" Lysandre answers seriously. "Augustine, I made mistakes. A lot of them. I am willing to do what it takes to make you happy."

Augustine keeps staring down at his hands. "What kind of technology do you have?" he finally says, quietly. "I want to feel... human, again. I want to be able to cry when I'm upset. I want to _look_ human, flaws and all. Toenails. Body hair. Nipples, for Arceus' sake." He manages to quirk a smile. "And other things I'd rather not mention in front of Xerosic."

Xerosic coughs once, then stands. "We can discuss any changes later," he says tactfully, and makes his escape. Lysandre hides a smile.

"Okay. Crying, toenails, body hair, nipples." He has his phone open again, is jotting them down. "We should be able to work out crying - maybe link it up to the same reservoir we use for your mouth. The toenails are easy. The body hair will take a while - they have to be hand-stitched, like your hair, eyelashes, and eyebrows - but it's doable. Nipples..." He waves a hand, a little pink. "Well, I mean, they won't be functioning, but they'll look fine. A navel?"

Augustine nods. This is by far the weirdest conversation he's ever had. "You hand-stitched my eyebrows?" he says, and grins, despite himself. "No wonder it took you ten months."

Lysandre laughs, perhaps out of sheer surprise.

Raising one hand, he touches his cheek. "My face," he says quietly. "It looks - well, a lot more realistic than everything else. Can you make my skin look like that? At the moment, I look like a poorly-animated CGI character."

"We can," Lysandre nods, "We use texturisers and airbrushing." He smiles ruefully. "I am being completely honest when I say that your face is a work of art."

Augustine can't blush, but he rather wishes he can, right now. "Oh," he says suddenly, as the thought prompts him onwards, "I want to be able to blush. And - you know, go red when it's hot and shiver when it's cold."

"That might be a bit trickier," Lysandre murmurs, although he dutifully notes it down. "If it's very hot, adding in _more_ code would make you overheat even more. And if it's too cold, making you shiver would redirect heat from your vital systems."

Augustine nods once, eyes down again, and he presses one hand against his abdomen. Vital systems, not organs. He's machinery, not organic. "Maybe there could be a cut-off," he suggests tiredly, "Like - a bell curve. As it gets warmer, I can go red, but when it starts getting too hot, it tapers off so I can -" He waves a hand. "Cool down. And the opposite for cold."

Lysandre nods in approval. "That works. Okay, what else?"

"Sneezing," Augustine says immediately, "And hiccups."

Lysandre starts writing them down, then stops short, lifting his head in surprise, blinking. "It's doable," he frowns, "But, er, _why_?"

"Because," Augustine starts, realises that he doesn't actually have a reason, and repeats, "Because."

Shaking his head in fond amusement, Lysandre notes it down. "Okay. Sneezing and hiccups."

Augustine manages a smile, then swings his legs out of bed. "Excuse me for a moment." Lysandre nods as he retreats to the bathroom (and it's wonderful being able to walk freely again, or for the first time, or something in between the two), hesitates for a long moment, then draws down the pyjama bottoms that he had apparently been changed in to.

Right, he thinks, making a face at his reflection. The catheter and other assorted tubes must have just been taped in place. He never actually saw them change anything; he never had any reason to actually look. Pulling them back up, he steps out again and drops himself on the side of the bed, swinging one foot idly. "So. Uh, I'm sure you can guess what I was checking."

Lysandre nods once, flushed pink.

"It's like a doll down there," he says ruefully. "I'm sure I'd look amazing in a thong now, but I'd kind of like to have a sex life again."

Suddenly very interested in his phone, Lysandre nods again, more a jerk of the head than anything else. "Well, the, uh, anatomical... features are easy enough," he coughs, "The, er, the hard part - sorry, the difficult part would be making sure it feels, well, good for you."

Augustine raises an eyebrow. "We've been together for five years," he points out, "Don't get all bashful now." Sighing, he curls his fingers in the sheet. "I don't mind. If you want to just do the anatomy so you can fuck me, I mean. It's no different to me just using my mouth or hands on you. At least one of us should be able to feel good, right? At least I'd be good for something."

Oops - he hadn't quite meant to add that last part out loud, and from Lysandre's wince, he hadn't expected it. "Can I hug you?" he asks quietly. Augustine sighs, and holds an arm out.

Lysandre practically pulls him into his lap from the force of his hug. "We won't do anything unless you can enjoy it too," he whispers to Augustine's hair. "I've treated you disgracefully, for my own benefit. I swear, no more. Whatever happens next will be for you, your ideas, whatever you want. Can you trust me on that?"

Augustine closes his eyes and buries his head against Lysandre's shoulder. "I'll try." Drawing back, he drops a swift kiss on Lysandre's lips. "But if you're holding anything back, then I want you to tell me, okay?"

"I promise."

"And," Augustine continues, then hesitates. "And I want to be able to be in contact with the outside world. At least let me have an internet connection again. You can't keep isolating me like this, Lysandre, it's driving me up the wall."

Lysandre hesitates for a long, painful moment, then nods once. "Okay. Just - be careful, okay? And it would be, ah, for the best if you don't tell anyone who - or what - you are. Just... not yet."

"The Flare Project," Augustine says quietly, and nods. "Okay."

What will he tell his family, if he ever talks to them again?

But it's a start. It's a start, and he hopes it will go to greater heights, more and more, as the days pass.

 

Xerosic is less optimistic.

"Shivering?" he says dubiously. He has Lysandre's email open; Augustine is sitting at the chair set in front of his desk with his hands folded. "Toenails? _Hiccups_?"

"It's to make me feel more human," Augustine says stubbornly. "Look, I know you think that humans are flawed. But I'm _not_ logical or perfect. I still remember being human, I still..." He hesitates. "Still see myself as one, I guess. But right now, I don't look or feel like one."

Xerosic frowns. "It's a tremendous waste of resources," he points out. "Instead of wasting time programming you to get the hiccups, why not add in code so that you have, say, a built-in calculator? It wouldn't be hard!"

"I'm not a computer."

"You are, actually." Xerosic reaches forward, taps Augustine's forehead. "In there is one of the finest computers ever made. The computer? That's what's speaking to me now. Yes, you have the memories and personality patterns of Augustine Sycamore, but he's dead. Why deny your true self?"

He doesn't answer, staring at the surface of the desk, brow furrowed.

"You will never have to experience physical or mental fatigue!" Xerosic exclaims, one hand gesticulating so widely he nearly smacks his computer. "You will never have to waste a third of the day on useless pursuits like sleep! You could achieve _so much_ if you embrace your true self! The computer, the robot, the android. Add it all up, and it means that you're so much more than just a mere human! Why would you _want_ to deny that sort of greatness?"

"I don't want to be more than 'just a mere human'," Augustine says softly. "I just want to be myself. I don't want to be something great. I've only ever been human, that's all I know how to be."

Xerosic sighs, slowly pulling off his gloves. "For the sake of argument, I will consider you Augustine Sycamore for now. Your birth certificate," he says. "It says 'female' on it, correct?"

Slowly, Augustine nods, eyeing Xerosic warily.

"But you're not."

"No. Not - not entirely."

"You were also born human," Xerosic points out, "And, up to a year ago, that was all you ever knew how to be. But now you're not. You came out as trans when you were eleven, didn't you? Prior to that, you only knew how to be female, correct?"

He nods again, a frown on his lips. "I guess."

"Birth certificates, the circumstances of birth. They don't mean anything, not while change exists. Your gender is something other than what is written on your birth certificate, and that's something you embrace. Why not your state of being? You were born human. Now, you are an android. Why not embrace that, too?"

"It's not that simple," he says quietly, but if Xerosic was to ask him why, he would not be able to articulate, cannot find the words to say why it's so hard to deny it.

"Think about it," Xerosic says, and spreads his hands. "Now, I have work to do. Come by at half past three, we can fit your new toenails then." He snorts. "Unnecessary, if you ask me, but Lysandre's the boss, and he says to do it. Off you go."

Augustine nods once, feeling small and confused and inarticulate, and rises from his seat, and leaves, feeling more lost than he did when he entered.


	11. A Shovelful of Dirt

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter warnings: Major character death (he gets better), suicidal ideation

The upside of learning what he is, to Augustine, is that he is no longer constrained by Lysandre's need for secrecy.

He no longer has a hospital room - instead, he has a small suite in the living quarters that Fleur-de-Lis apparently provides for its employees. It's tastefully decorated (albeit with a few too many reds for his liking; still, he can't really say he's surprised), with a queen-sized bed, proper bed linen, and a view of the courtyard.

More often than not, Lysandre stays the night as well, leaving for his own apartment only to water his plants. It's comfortable, curling up in Lysandre's arms again (again?), and although he's still working out how to trust him again, Lysandre has kept his word about one thing, one vital, wonderful thing.

He has the internet again, and, through it, a link to the outside world.

His email account is full of a year's worth of spam and automated newsletters - it takes him a good hour to delete them all. Hesitantly, he has a brief read of the work-related emails from the day of the accident, then slowly, methodically, deletes them.

Even if they did know he's alive, he's not the regional Professor any more.

He looks up Professor Olivier, his successor. She seems competent and clever, and he makes a mental note to look up her thesis on the chemical differences between otherwise-identical Mega Stones found in Kalos and in Hoenn. Her biography on the official lab website shows a youngish woman smiling at the camera, the light glinting on her glasses and her hair worn natural, and he smiles back automatically.

The lab, it seems, is in good hands.

Augustine pauses for a moment when he spots the image of the candle at the bottom of the page, then clicks it.

It's a memorial page. His name, and two dates - the thirteenth of October, 2013, and the ninth of Cheshvan, 5774. There's a footnote attached to the latter, informing the reader that the date for 2014 will fall on the second of November. (Sophie's doing, he assumes. His cousin is a little more observant than he is.)

There's a short blurb. It's nothing very detailed - just a note of his academic accomplishments, what he achieved at the labs as its regional professor, and a note saying that he will be dearly missed.

And there are photos. His official lab portrait; the one that used to be on his biography page. There's a photo from an article shortly after his appointment, showing him holding up one of the newly-hatched Chespins and smiling at the little thing. There's a photo from one of the open days, taken by one of the others, as he explains something or other to a group of young trainers.

There's a group photo of everyone at the lab, and this is the one that would bring the tears to his eyes if he was still capable of doing so.

It's in the lab's garden, a bright, sunshiney day. He's leaning against his favourite tree, face turned towards Artemis, who has reached out to tousle his hair. Sophie and Cosette sit in the grass nearby, turned towards each other; Sina and Dexio are smiling tentatively (he remembers that they had only just been employed at that point), and Cosette has her lap full of the Marill and Azurill that live in the enclosure. There are Combee in the air; Dexio absent-mindedly pets the Linoone.

He misses them so much.

The door clicks and swings open; Lysandre settles on the bed as well, resting his chin on the crown of Augustine's head. "I looked at that page a lot, early on," he says quietly. "Looking at the photos, wondering if I'd ever see you again."

Lysandre still insists so deeply, so passionately, that he's still the same person that he was before the explosion.

"What was it like?" he says quietly. "I mean - after I died. What was it like for you?"

"Hell," Lysandre says. His voice is simple and matter-of-fact. "It was hell. If I hadn't been able to bring you back, if you hadn't been _you_ when we woke you up, I had plans to kill myself on the anniversary."

Augustine flinches, and reaches for Lysandre's hand. "I'm sorry."

"For what?"

 _For not being what you think you've got._ It's a sudden, intrusive thought; he pushes it back forcefully, and simply shrugs.

Lysandre hesitates. "I was thinking, earlier. If you want to see what it's like," he starts slowly, "I could... show you. The Esprit Device - it can record memories without the brainwave component. You could see what - what it was like."

Augustine gazes at him for a moment, brow furrowed. He understands the concept, but not the reasoning. "Why?"

"Because I made some terrible, terrible mistakes," he admits. "And I know that. But I want you to show that I made them with the best of intentions, and - I want someone else to know. So that you may stop me if I begin to go down that path again. You make me a better person, Augustine."

He nods.

 

Saturday.

A calm autumn Saturday, not too cold, the air crisp. A scarf loose over his shoulders, it's a little too warm to wear properly. Casual clothes. No lab work today, this day has been for the cafe only.

Walking to the lab. People in the streets, not too busy. Augustine is working late, and on the weekend, too. He is going to take him out for dinner. Get him away from the lab a bit.

Sirens in the distance. A hint of smoke in the air. Normal, for the city.

Xerosic. Hurrying up to him from ahead, making light conversation. Nothing of importance. He's been at the labs. Even on weekends, they all work. Brief conversation about the Holo Caster.

Sirens even louder. Sirens, in the direction of the lab. A prickle of fear.

Smoke.

Smoke.

Smoke, and flames billowing out the windows of the top floor of lab.

A cry of anguish. Feet thudding painfully against the cobblestones, running, running hard. Bursting through the door, gloved hands trying to pull him back. The foyer is full of smoke. He has his Gyarados. His Gyarados clears a path.

Eyes watering from the smoke. Weeping in sick terror.

Xerosic calling his name, hurrying up behind him. A steadying hand on his arm as his Gyarados cuts a path through the flames.

The top floor of the lab. Fear and nausea. Alarms going, the crackle and pop of flames. Thick, thick black smoke. The haze left as water extinguishes fire.

Screaming Augustine's name. Fighting through the haze.

The landing, where the fire was most intense. Burnt and blackened machinery. Soaking wet, sparking dangerously. Splashing through water, pushing towards the office.

Augustine. Augustine, curled up in his chair. The window is cracked. The window is not broken. Augustine, curled up in his chair like he's asleep.

Augustine, curled up in his chair like he's asleep. Wheezing, chest heaving. Hyperventilating, hoarse and broken. Black mucus flecking his blue lips. Soot on his skin, around his nose.

Yanking his sleeve over his hand. Striking the window until it shatters. Pulling Augustine into his arms. Pressing his lips to Augustine's, forcing air into his lungs.

Xerosic, face pale, touching his arm. Pulling a machine out of his bag, a tablet attached to a black box attached to wires and electrodes.

Esprit.

Spirit, essence.

Possibly, an only chance.

Continuing CPR. Fighting panic, fighting tears, fighting to push air into his lungs. Breathe, dammit, Augustine, _breathe_!

Xerosic, attaching electrodes, attaching wires.

Please, Augustine. Please.

Xerosic frowning at the tablet, Xerosic with his expression grim. Xerosic detaching electrodes, detaching wires.

The first responders. Pushing Lysandre away, fixing the oxygen mask to Augustine's blue and black lips. Lysandre fighting, fighting to reach him, fighting to touch him, fighting, fighting...

The ambulance ride. Twisting in his seat. Twisting to see Augustine, the paramedics swarming him. Get away, he wants to scream, get away, let him breathe!

The hospital. Intensive care. Holding Augustine's hand. Blue fingernails. Hypoxia. Diantha curled at the head of the bed, one hand on her twin's forehead. Watching him sleep. Watching the oxygen tube between his lips. Watching the sluggish heart monitor.

His parents arriving. Crying. Holding his other hand. Rubbing, soothing. Four of them locked together in grief and fear.

The doctors. The doctors with their tests. The doctors with their grim faces. The bronchoscopy. The EEG. The EEG and its straight lines. The EEG, flatlined.

The doctors, looking grim. The doctors, and their lips shape the words, brain death.

Augustine looking so small in the bed, so small hooked up to oxygen and wires and monitors. Augustine, heart beating but mind irreversibly damaged. Augustine, brain-dead.

The agreement.

Kissing Augustine's cheek. Whispering I love you, and I'm sorry, and goodbye.

Walking out. Walking out because he can't watch, he can't, he can't.

Twenty-seven minutes past three on the morning of the thirteenth of October.

Diantha joining him in the hall. Her hair tangled, her eyes red. Leaning against his side, taking his hand. Whispering, it's done. Weeping together. Mourning together.

His mother never leaving his side.

The funeral. Feeling lost and out of place at the chevra kaddisha. The torn black ribbon pinned to his jacket. Prayers he doesn't understand. A eulogy he can't bring himself to listen to. Following Augustine's father into the family room. Staring at his hands, eyes red and sore from weeping. Sitting next to Diantha in the car, holding her hand. Prayers, prayers of mortality, prayers of love. The kaddish, mouthing the words as best he can. A shovelful of dirt. Condolences, pity, sympathy; murmurs of, "a long life".

But thirty-three years is not nearly a long enough life.

Diantha and her mother go to sit Shiva. He does not.

He has work to do.

A mind, memories, but no body to put it in. A mind, memories, but no way to turn that into a person. Long hours, fuelled by coffee and grief. Xerosic at his side as they turn memories into code. A decision to deceive, a decision to keep him stable and safe, planning deception even as he plans to defy death.

Sculpting a face, a beautiful, perfect face. Eyes closed, skin soft, hair silken beneath his fingers. Perfection, created from photos and holos and memory, memory like it's yesterday.

A photo of them on his desk. The photo from the labs, the glass fogged with smoke but their smiles still clear.

Arguments with Xerosic. Arguments that the illusion is necessary for the sake of Augustine's mental state. Xerosic arguing that honesty from the outset is best. 

Long nights. Long nights of self-doubt and mourning, because Augustine is dead and he doesn't know if he can fix it. A self-imposed deadline to wake him up before one year passes. A self-imposed deadline that if he can't fix it, he'll join him instead.

A body, complete. Augustine, eyes closed, an enchanted sleep that Lysandre will break with his kiss.

The first test. Consciousness. Memory. Watching code scroll down his laptop. Slowly, gently, shutting it down again. Longer and longer tests. Hearing.

"Augustine."

_Please. Please._

"Augustine, can you hear me?"

Lies. Lies spilling from his lips.

Augustine's eyes open. Augustine looking at him. Augustine blinking answers. Joy so strong he feels dizzy, guilt so powerful he feels sick.

Augustine, becoming himself again.

Augustine, hurting. Not knowing how to make it better.

Augustine, running.

Augustine, learning the truth.

Augustine, in pain.

Augustine, and a promise to make it better.

Augustine, loved.

Loved.

Loved.

 

Lysandre is in tears by the end. Augustine would be, if he could. He turns to Lysandre and embraces him, head tucked into the crook of his neck, arms clinging as if Lysandre is his lifeline.

"I'm here," he whispers, and he hopes it is the truth.


	12. O human child

Being able to cry again is liberating.

It has its limitations, of course. It has to be on demand. His breath doesn't catch, his eyes don't grow hot. But having the ability to show misery and frustration and tears of anger and emotion - it's liberating, as much as getting the ability to type, the ability to speak was.

Lysandre teaches him how to access his own sleep settings, how to ensure that the dream program (images from the past, images from the day's events, mixed in with other tropes, randomised, and given new interpretations) runs when he's feeling up for it. Xerosic modifies it so that certain emotional responses will wake him up; it's a saving grace, so that he will not have the crystal-clear memory of a nightmare lingering throughout the entire day.

He wakes up in tears from a nightmare, letting Lysandre hold him and stroke his hair as the incomplete program deletes itself.

Augustine may no longer be Kalos' regional professor, but he's still a scientist, and his mind is inquisitive. Lysandre arranges for him to get log-in details for one of the large databases, and he spends hours browsing anything that catches his fancy. A year's worth of Pokemon research, yes, especially that in his own field of Mega Evolution, but also new and fascinating avenues.

He explores artificial intelligence, trauma recovery, and medical prosthetics. He scours articles on transhumanism, determined to understand this new perspective (Fleur-de-Lis Labs has a large collection of its own; he recognises a pseudonym that Lysandre has used at times on a few of the papers). He reads articles on the recovery of devastated natural environments, rehabilitation after land clearing, methods to increase biodiversity.

It's a very nice change from mindless movies.

It's the articles on robotics and artificial intelligence that trip him up. They promise him the world, promise that androids, robots, synthetic life is the future. He finds himself looking at his own synthetic hands, at the strength and dexterity within them. He's more coordinated now. Dyspraxia has always meant that his feet don't quite obey his commands, that he drops things, fumbles others. Now his moves are smooth and precise - a line of code executed, a response born from processing speed and not easily-confused nerves.

Leaning back against Lysandre's chest, he's testing himself - without looking, tossing a rubber ball up and down, in his left hand only, catching it deftly every time. "I think," he says, "It's fair to say I no longer have dyspraxia."

Lysandre chuckles briefly. "No. I expect that's one benefit."

Augustine makes an uncertain noise. "I guess. It was a part of me, though." He lets out a sigh through his lips. "Okay, depression and anxiety. I think I still have them, but they're the situational kind. Cognitive behavioural therapy might be good. But it's not the kind you take antidepressants for, since - well, I don't _have_ serotonin any more."

"Maybe I should transfer myself to a robot body myself, it'd do wonders for bipolar," Lysandre jokes half-heartedly. Augustine shakes his head, but it's with a slight smile.

"Okay, here's a trickier question!" He tilts his head back to peer at Lysandre's face. "Do you think I'm still autistic and still have ADHD? Because that's down to the way my brain is wired - _was_ wired," he corrects himself, "And I guess that depends on how much the, uh, Esprit Device copied down."

Lysandre makes a thoughtful noise. "I have no experience with the ADHD part," he admits, "So my input would be relatively useless there. For the rest, it's hard to say. Do you _feel_ any less autistic?"

"Compared to what?" Augustine points out dryly. "Honestly, I don't feel like I get sensory overload much any more. The other day I could touch something made of vinyl - those chairs in Xerosic's office - and I didn't feel like ripping my fingers off. And anyway, if I did, you could just reattach them," he adds with a grin, wriggling said fingers. "I can't really do a lot of tactile stims any more, but the vestibular ones, I still do. Something about them still makes me calm. And visual, actually, that's a new one."

"Huh." Lysandre shifts a little; Augustine can feel the movement of his muscles, the heat of his body, and tries to translate it into his old feelings. "I should get you one of those things you turn upside down to make coloured bubbles."

Augustine grins at the idea. "Yeah. I like watching things move a lot more, I guess it redirected. I still don't think I'm very good at the whole... people thing. Great, as if people need more of an excuse to call autistics 'robots', now I literally am one." He rolls his eyes and shakes his head; multitasks his exasperation.

"I think I still go off on special interests. Scripting, in unfamiliar environments." He's going quieter now. "It's - all been pretty unfamiliar. I don't think I've coped very well. I'm not sure if it's because I'm autistic or because this is so outside of _anyone's_ experiences that anyone would be near meltdown. I feel better now that I have some sort of routine, but I still feel lost. I want things to be back to normal again."

If it was still automatic, his eyes would probably be damp right now. As it is, he just leans back against Lysandre miserably, closing his eyes.

"I'm sorry," Lysandre murmurs, and drops a kiss into his curls.

He manages a wan smile. "I guess it's better than being dead. Probably. I don't know." He sighs.

Lysandre reaches for his hand and squeezes it. "I promise I will help you adjust," he says quietly. "And in the mean time, I suspect you are still autistic, but you don't have sensory overload any more, that's one advantage. There could be research in there - treatments for less desirable symptoms, treatments for things like dyspraxia."

Augustine forces a chuckle. "It's a pretty extreme solution, turning someone into a robot just to get rid of one symptom. And, you know, there's a lot of potential for abuse. People being forced into treatment because the people around them think that it's for the best. Especially autistic kids - there are so many autistic kids forced to act neurotypical by their parents and caretakers. They learn to hate themselves. There could be stigma against not getting enhancements if they're available. There could be stigma _for_ getting enhancements. It isn't just technology, the way we look at it entirely would have to change."

He falls silent for a moment, then shakes his head wordlessly, unable to articulate quite why he feels so discontent, so unsettled.

"I suppose it would have to be pretty tightly regulated," Lysandre murmurs, then turns to glance at the clock. "It's nearing eleven. Should we start getting ready for bed?"

He gives his assent and they both rise, Lysandre brushing his teeth and taking his medication, Augustine shutting down the laptop and refilling the kettle so that Lysandre may have coffee in the morning. (Oh, Arceus, he misses coffee.) Augustine is already in bed when Lysandre returns from the bathroom; Lysandre switches off the light and stretches out beside him.

Lysandre is nearing sleep, and Augustine is about to start his Sleep program, when the thought occurs to him.

"Hey, Lysandre?"

"Mrph?" comes the sleepy response.

"Now that I'm a robot..." He's grinning in the dark. "Does that mean I'm no longer nonbinary?"

Lysandre throws a pillow at him.

 

And he still doesn't know if he's a human who's now inhabiting a robot body, his consciousness kept intact, smoothly transitioning from flesh to synthetics, or if he's just a newly-built robot with flawed programming and the delusion that he was once a human.

He can be light-hearted with Lysandre, he can go into thoughtful debates and make ridiculous jokes about the contradiction of a nonbinary robot. He can be fascinated by the articles he reads and feel impressed at reading about new advancements in his field (former field?). He can put on the facade of normalcy, and all the while wonder if it would be best to start over, for the idea of 'Augustine Sycamore' to be laid to rest.

It would hurt Lysandre, he supposes, for him to wear the same face if the mind inside was no longer the same. But then, doesn't the face he wears encourage Lysandre to see him as Augustine and Augustine only?

He's a paradox. Face, memories. Circuits, wires, gears. Programming, the entire concept unsettling him, the idea that he can be so easily changed with just an adjustment of code.

(But then, wouldn't a human be at the whims of their brains? Hasn't he himself been held hostage by his own neurotransmitters?)

Lysandre sees him as Augustine because he wants, needs to believe that Augustine is still alive. Xerosic sees him as a marvelous robot, because he wants, needs to succeed in his plans of a world ruled by perfectly logical, perfectly emotionless androids.

What he needs is a third party.

If he can reach out to someone who knew him, who knew Augustine Sycamore, before the accident - if they recognise him, independently, without prompting - then perhaps he can accept it more. If there's something in him that people will recognise on their own, then perhaps a part of him is still alive.

He opens up an instant messenger. Logs in to the new account he had set up. Types in Diantha's personal account.

[15:22] SteelTypeSylveon: hi diantha I know u dont know me but I got ur un from alexa  
[15:22] SteelTypeSylveon: she said u could help me  
[15:22] SteelTypeSylveon: she says the pass phrase is 'to the waters and the wild with a faery hand in hand'

(It's a lie, of course, but one based in truth - he and Alexa are two of the few people Diantha trusts to let people get in contact with her, and they both know the pass phrase - assuming it hasn't changed in over a year. He knows he can't tell her straight away; knows that otherwise she could dismiss his contact out of hand.)

It's a long, anxious wait. If he still had a heart, it would be in his mouth.

[15:29] fairyanth: Sure thing, SteelTypeSylveon :) I have about half an hour before I have to go, but we can totally talk for a bit! What do you want to talk about?  
[15:30] SteelTypeSylveon: I am in a bad situation I suppose  
[15:30] SteelTypeSylveon: I was in an accident a little while ago and was v badly hurt  
[15:31] fairyant: I'm so sorry to hear that! How can I help you?  
[15:31] SteelTypeSylveon: I just need someone to talk to  
[15:31] SteelTypeSylveon: because everything is so different now  
[15:31] SteelTypeSylveon: and I know youre compassionate and intelligent and I need a sympathetic ear  
[15:32] SteelTypeSylveon: someone who wont look at me and straight away make judgements  
[15:32] fairyanth: Of course. We can talk about whatever you want. Why do they make judgements on you, if you don't mind me asking?  
[15:32] SteelTypeSylveon: everyone at the hospital just sees me as a collection of medical conditions and cures and my new disabilities  
[15:32] SteelTypeSylveon: if I have any sort of problem they just go  
[15:33] SteelTypeSylveon: 'oh we will just do this medical solution bla bla bla'  
[15:33] SteelTypeSylveon: im hurting but I have noone to reach out to and I feel like a monster  
[15:33] fairyanth: I'm so sorry. You don't have family you can talk to?  
[15:33] SteelTypeSylveon: none I can talk to

Which is true enough, he supposes - and at any rate, he's reaching out to family now.

[15:34] fairyanth: I'm sorry :( I found it very helpful talking to a counsellor, they might be able to help  
[15:34] fairyanth: There are some online ones, I can find some resources for you  
[15:34] fairyanth: In my case it was because of grief and not injury/disability, but the idea is much the same  
[15:35] fairyanth: I don't know if you're in Kalos, but just over a year ago, our regional professor died. We're siblings, twins in fact, and it was like part of my soul got ripped out. It was like a nightmare I couldn't wake up from. A counsellor helped a lot  
[15:36] SteelTypeSylveon: im sorry

He's crying, now. It feels appropriate to do so. His death hurt one of the people he loves more than anyone else in the world; this nightmare is not his alone.

[15:36] fairyanth: It's okay. It's something you don't really get over, but you can learn coping skills and new ways to look at things  
[15:36] fairyanth: If you're facing permanent disability, then it's a kind of grief as well - you've lost your old life. When August died, I lost the part of me that was a twin and an older sister, I didn't just lose him  
[15:37] fairyanth: It's not really the same thing but they're similar, I lost a part of myself too  
[15:37] SteelTypeSylveon: im sorry  
[15:37] fairyanth: Please don't apologise. It's not your fault :p  
[15:37] SteelTypeSylveon: ok sorry  
[15:37] SteelTypeSylveon: I did it again I want to apologise again for saying sorry too many times but thats counterproductive!  
[15:38] fairyanth: Haha!  
[15:38] fairyanth: I know this is a serious conversation but you reminded me of something for a bit haha

("August, I swear, if you say 'sorry' one more time, I'm telling Papa it was you who broke the window."

"Okay, jeez, sorry!"

" _Au_ gust!"

"Sorry! ...Shit!")

[15:38] SteelTypeSylveon: haha I apologise for everything  
[15:38] SteelTypeSylveon: I think its an anxiety thing  
[15:38] SteelTypeSylveon: not wanting to cause people inconvenience  
[15:39] fairyanth: You would be surprised at what people don't necessarily need apologies for! :)  
[15:39] fairyanth: It's okay  
[15:39] SteelTypeSylveon: haha maybe we should change the topic  
[15:40] fairyanth: Yes, let's ;)  
[15:41] SteelTypeSylveon: one thing im having trouble with is disconnect  
[15:41] SteelTypeSylveon: I feel like theres two versions of me  
[15:42] SteelTypeSylveon: the one from before the accident and the one after

He does, in fact, mean this more literally than most; the Augustine Sycamore before the accident was not an android. He is very much a different person to the former Augustine.

[15:42] SteelTypeSylveon: I want my family and friends but I dont know if theyll look at me and see some imposter  
[15:42] SteelTypeSylveon: my boyfriend has been with me all this time but I wonder sometimes if hes just deluding himself  
[15:43] SteelTypeSylveon: going 'oh of course ur the same person' because he wants it so badly to be true  
[15:43] SteelTypeSylveon: and if I saw any of my family or friends again  
[15:43] SteelTypeSylveon: theyd wonder who I was because I wasnt the person they remembered  
[15:44] fairyanth: If they truly know and love you, they'll accept you no matter what  
[15:44] fairyanth: Even if things change with brain damage and disability and other terrible things that can happen to a person, there's always something that makes a person an indivudual  
[15:44] fairyanth: individual*  
[15:44] fairyanth: I suppose some people would call it a soul. Others call it Aura. It's something that's intrinsic to an individual.

Would he still read the same to an Aura-user? Augustine frowns to himself, gazing at his hands. Has he changed so fundamentally?

[15:45] SteelTypeSylveon: even if someone changes so much theyre unrecognisable?  
[15:45] SteelTypeSylveon: something died in the accident  
[15:45] SteelTypeSylveon: if you have a 9 and you subtract a 4  
[15:46] SteelTypeSylveon: then u have a 5 left  
[15:46] SteelTypeSylveon: and a 5 is very different to a 9  
[15:46] fairyanth: People aren't numbers, though. Think of it more as type changes! Azurill is normal and fairy. Marill is water and fairy! It's lost the normal entirely, but it's still the same Pokemon  
[15:47] fairyanth: You've evolved into something else, that's all  
[15:47] fairyanth: You can ask Sylveon about that!  
[15:48] SteelTypeSylveon: haha  
[15:48] fairyanth: A change in type doesn't mean you're not the same person  
[15:48] fairyanth: And people will recognise you no matter what  
[15:48] fairyanth: Even if they don't know the questions to ask  
[15:48] fairyanth: I remember an 11-year-old facing a Bat Mitzvah they didn't want to have  
[15:49] fairyanth: Realising that they weren't a girl  
[15:49] fairyanth: Terrified that they would lose their twin if she had the Bat Mitzvah and they didn't  
[15:49] fairyanth: But the twin knew that even though they were evolving into different types  
[15:49] fairyanth: They would always be together, no matter how things changed  
[15:50] fairyanth: The people who love you will always love you  
[15:50] fairyanth: I told you that before my Bat Mitzvah because you were so scared you'd lose me  
[15:50] fairyanth: And I still mean it now  
[15:51] fairyanth: Where are you, August?

He's weeping, his artificial heart is racing. He's not shaking, but he suspects that ordinarily, if he still had a nervous system, he would be.

She knows. She _knows_ , even anonymously, even after over a year.

[15:52] fairyanth: August please talk to me  
[15:52] fairyanth: Please tell me it's you so I'm not sitting here shaking and crying for nothing!  
[15:52] fairyanth: Please please please please please  
[15:53] SteelTypeSylveon: I miss u anthy  
[15:53] SteelTypeSylveon: im sorry I miss u so much im sorry I couldn't tell  
[15:53] SteelTypeSylveon: sorry crying too  
[15:54] fairyanth: How?  
[15:54] fairyanth: I was there, how are you still alive?  
[15:54] fairyanth: I miss you so much too  
[15:55] SteelTypeSylveon: I cant explain online  
[15:55] fairyanth: Then let me see you!!  
[15:55] SteelTypeSylveon: the hospital doesnt allow visitors  
[15:55] SteelTypeSylveon: im sorry but I cant explain  
[15:56] fairyanth: Then meet with me somewhere? Can you get to the park on r14?  
[15:56] SteelTypeSylveon: I think so  
[15:56] SteelTypeSylveon: I want to see u again so much  
[15:56] fairyanth: Tomorrow at 7:00? It'll be more private before all the trainers hit the trail  
[15:57] SteelTypeSylveon: ill be there  
[15:57] SteelTypeSylveon: if I cant then check ur ims and ill let u know  
[15:57] fairyanth: Okay. I have to go now, but I'll see you tomorrow  
[15:58] fairyanth: I love you so much August  
[15:58] SteelTypeSylveon: I love u too anthy  
[15:58] SteelTypeSylveon: see u tomorrow


	13. Mirrors

It's six in the morning when Lysandre gets up to shower.

Augustine, who has set his sleep cycle to wake him up a few minutes earlier, lies in bed feigning sleep until he hears the water run; he's up and dressed within a minute. No need for elaborate disguises here - jeans, sneakers, a hoodie, sunglasses, and a headband to keep his hair out of his eyes are all he needs.

He jots down a note - _gone for a walk_ \- and slips out of the suite. This early in the morning, there's no one in the halls yet; there is no receptionist at the front desk, and he can step out quietly through the fire door.

He has no identification, no phone, no money - just his own two legs (well - as much as they can be his own). Flipping up the hood of his hoodie, Augustine steels himself, and sets off at a jog.

It's actually pleasant, jogging, without need to be concerned about overheating or tripping (mostly) or any sort of exertion. The early morning is cool and crisp, dew coating the grass, and although he has a good seven kilometres from the location of the lab to the park at the beginning of Laverre Nature Trail (he had looked it up the night before), he's enjoying being out and about.

He sees newspapers being delivered. Other joggers, and walkers and runners as well. People taking their Pokemon for a walk. A few people starting a very early commute.

No one takes much notice of him - he's just another early-morning jogger. Augustine smiles and basks in anonymity.

It's ten minutes to seven by the time he arrives at the playground. For a moment, he gazes out at it, hands in his pockets; then he pulls his hair free of the band, slips the sunglasses into his pocket, and makes for the cubby house attached to the climbing frame and slide.

He and Diantha had spent so many happy hours in this park, before impending stardom and training (for her) and academic study (for him) had slowly put an end to it. Newcomers to Lumiose at the age of eight, they had had no one but each other at first, and the cubby house had become a fortress, a palace, a sanctuary.

They had pretended to be pirates, fairies, dragons. They had shared secrets there, two curly heads bent close as Diantha had whispered that she liked girls, and as Augustine had whispered that he liked girls _and_ boys. (He had been ten. The concept of nonbinary genders was still rather unknown to him at the time.) They had met there after she had returned from her first overseas film project, swapping stories of how their lives had been since they had last been in each other's company. It had been there that he had excitedly told her about the concept of being genderfluid he had learned at university; there where they had said goodbye for a time before he set out for Sinnoh. It was in the cubby that she had consoled him after his miserable failure at the Tower of Mastery, and there where they had congratulated each other on becoming Kalos' champion (her) and professor (him).

Augustine can think of no better place to wait for her.

He sets one foot on the climbing frame, and a soft voice calls out.

"What's the password?"

It takes him only a second to remember it, and to call out in turn, "Dragon types are the best!" - before adding, in his own personal addition, "But I'd quite like to put in a good word for Fairy types, too!"

She laughs tearfully, and he scrambles up and into the cubby, and is nearly knocked flat as he's promptly tackled in a hug. (He has no doubt that if he had got the password wrong, he would instead be knocked flat by her Gardevoir's Moonblast.)

Diantha clings to him as if expecting him to disappear in a wisp of smoke if she were to let go; she weeps into his shoulder, and he smiles and lets his own tears fall and thinks it's so, so good to see her again.

It's minutes before they pull apart again. Diantha's eyes are bright with tears and joy; she rests a hand on Augustine's cheek. "Oh, look at you," she breathes, "There's not a mark on you."

"I - yeah." He bites his lip, and, almost mirrored, she does too.

She looks tired. The lines beneath her eyes rival his own. This early, she's dressed casually in a thick sweater, leggings, and ankle boots, hair tied back in a simple ponytail; she looks like any other woman in her early thirties out for an early-morning walk, one who's faced too much stress and pain over the last year.

"What happened?" she finally says, reaching for one of his hands, squeezing it between his own. "Please, tell me everything. I don't understand, we all thought - I mean, this is impossible." She laughs tearfully. "I'm not complaining, but Arceus, what happened?"

Augustine closes his eyes. He doesn't want to see, can't make himself see the hurt on her face when he finally tells her. "You thought right," he finally says softly, voice subdued. "I - your twin - he did die. That really happened."

She doesn't say anything, but her hands on his own switch to rubbing soothingly, reassuringly.

"Lysandre was one of the first on the scene, along with one of his colleagues, Xerosic. Xerosic has this - machine, it's called the Esprit Device. It can record brain waves. Memories."

He opens his eyes then, wishes he hadn't. Diantha looks pained, like she's already guessed where he's going with this.

He lets out an artificial sigh. "They used it. And they made me, and used your twin's brain waves and memories. When I woke up, I really did think I was him, that I was still human, that I was still Augustine Sycamore. I only found out the truth recently - what I am, and that - that he really did die."

His eyes close again.

"I'm just an android with your twin's brain waves and memories. I'm sorry." His voice is soft, uncertain. "I'm sorry. I might have something of his thought patterns and memories, but the real Augustine Sycamore really did die over a year ago."

Wordlessly, she drags him into a hug, then whacks him on the back of the head.

"Hey!"

"Augustine Guillaume Sycamore, for a genius, you can be really dense sometimes," she says, laughing through her tears. "I recognised you, didn't I? What do you _think_ that means?"

He shrugs, smiling ruefully. "Wishful thinking, maybe?"

She raises an eyebrow. "Unlike Lysandre, I had no preconceived notions," she points out. "When we first started talking, I just thought you were... I don't know, a stranger who Alexa thought I could help. But it felt like I was talking to my twin again. Just - the way you spoke. The things you said. The completely ungrammatical use of language." Diantha lets out a little laugh, squeezing his shoulder. "How did you get a doctorate with grammar that bad, seriously?"

Augustine chuckles as well; it's an old point of contention between them. "When did you know?"

"When you started apologising every two seconds."

"Oh. Sor-"

He barely gets the word out before she whacks him again, and he's laughing, laughing and shoving her back with his shoulder, and it's so much like old times that for just a moment, just for one single moment, he feels like himself again.

They settle back against the wall of the cubby house, shoulder to shoulder, hand in hand, heads tilted towards each other. "What do you want me to tell Maman and Papa?" Diantha asks quietly, reality slipping in through the cracks, seeping around the quiet moment.

They would have mourned him for over a year.

"How are they?" he finally says. "I mean, how are they coping with - everything?"

"Papa focuses on his plants a lot," Diantha says with a little shrug. "He practically lives in his greenhouse sometimes. Oh, he entered a contest in the summer - his rawst berries took second place, so at least he's keeping busy. Maman is... quiet. She took a few months off after - you know - but she's back at work now." A sigh pushes past her lips. "They're in mourning. They're coping, but they're mourning. We've all been seeing grief counsellors."

"I'm sorry."

She shoves at him with her shoulder. "Shut up. I don't know. How much can you say?"

"I don't even know." He smiles ruefully. "Actually, I'm not even sure if I should be here. The technology they used is..." He waves a hand at his own torso. "Very experimental. I think they want to take precautions before I, er, go public. Somehow," he adds with a dry laugh, "I don't think Lysandre thought very far beyond bringing me back."

He hasn't even mentioned the transhumanist angle. Lysandre, he knows, sees technology as enhancements - it's Xerosic that's the wild card here. How would he even begin to explain what he wants?

"He always has been pretty single-minded." She's smiling in a rather grim way, and she and Lysandre may have bonded over his death but they've never exactly been close. "How is he treating you?"

He winces a little. "We had a huge fight after I found out," he says softly, deciding it would probably be for the best not to tell Diantha exactly what he had done with the glass. "I felt so - betrayed that he had lied to me. About my entire existence." A rueful smile crosses Augustine's lips. "He's since promised to make up for it and to be honest with me, and he is - he's been so supportive, the entire time."

He could have ended the statement there.

"But I don't know how much he actually trusts me," he bursts out. "He didn't tell me at first, kept up the pretence that I had been hurt and that I wasn't a robot he had created, that I was in a hospital instead of a lab - he said he did it to protect me. He's made a lot of decisions for me without asking. Look," he adds suddenly, and pulls the hoodie up. "He gave me a flat chest, because he thought I wouldn't want to bind any more if I had the opportunity."

Diantha frowns. "You've never wanted surgery, though," she says thoughtfully, glancing down at her own chest. "I mean, top surgery is all well and good for me and for him, but for you..."

She trails off as Augustine readjusts his hoodie, worrying her lip.

"Yeah. It would have been nice to have been asked."

"Yeah. Yeah, definitely." Her hand slips down again, taking his own. "Anyway - Maman and Papa?"

He starts; he had forgotten the original question. "Right. Uh, I think, for now, don't say anything. I'll talk to Lysandre when I get back and see what he says. Of course," he adds with a faint smile, "That doesn't necessarily mean I'll obey what he says. He's my boyfriend, not my owner."

Diantha grins, offering him a high five. "That's the spirit. Will you get in trouble? For leaving?"

"I don't think so. If he does, then I'll get in contact with you. Maybe you could bust me out. It could be like real-world experience for one of your action movies!" He says it lightly, but it's only half in jest, really. Diantha is more than capable enough to take on Lysandre, and the fact that he's even thought it is a little alarming.

"My twin, the android. Maybe it's more science fiction." She grins back, but she's gone back to holding his hand, still grounding him, still keeping him safe, the perpetual older sister. "Look, whatever you choose to do, I'll support your choice. And August, please remember something, okay?"

Watching her, he makes a curious noise.

"Whatever has happened to you, however much it's changed you, you're still my twin. I told you when we were eleven, I told you yesterday, and I'm telling you now. No matter how things change, we'll always be together." She lets go of his hand, but it's only so she can hug him instead, pressing a kiss to his forehead. "You're my other half and I've loved you since before we were born, okay? That's not going to change just because you're now synthetic instead of organic."

He wants to cry, so he does, silent tears dripping down his cheeks. "Thanks," he whispers, and he's clinging to her, clinging like she's his lifeline. "I love you too."

"Do you want me to walk you back?" she says, and draws back enough for him to see the smile quirk her lips. "If I'm going to need to stage a grand rescue, I need to at least know where the place is, right?"

"Yeah. Thank you."

They walk anonymously, he in his hoodie and sunglasses, she in her ordinary clothes and simple hairstyle. They talk, catch up, making their way through the suburban streets; they're just two people, spending time together.

He's missed her.

They part ways a little outside of the grounds of the lab, and she hugs him like she fears she'll never see him again. "Please keep in touch, okay?" she tells him seriously, both of his hands in hers. "Seriously, August, try and keep me up to date regularly. And if there's even the slightest hint that anyone there is mistreating you, I swear I'll come and get you."

"I know. I know you will." He kisses her on the cheek. "See you later."

He turns, begins the walk back up to the lab, to Lysandre. As he passes the boom gate, he turns and sees her watching him go. He raises a hand in a parting wave, and then he's gone.


	14. Future Sight

He had half expected to be accosted at the front door, really.

As it is, he can simply walk straight in (the receptionist has arrived and the automatic doors are unlocked). Spotting his mild perplexity, she glances up, offering him a smile. "The director asked me to tell you that he's in a meeting," she calls, and he halts in his tracks, "But he'll meet you back in your room at nine."

"Oh." He's probably going to be angry. "Uh, thank you."

He glances at the clock; it's a quarter past eight.

The suite is empty, and Augustine takes the time to remove his sneakers (keeping the socks on, it's not like they got sweaty) and put the headband away. His hair is a mess thanks to the headband and hood, and he occupies himself with fixing it, neatly, painstakingly, making him look more like himself.

There's not much else to do. Booting up his laptop, he logs on to the chat program briefly -

[8:27] SteelTypeSylveon: made it back ok  
[8:27] SteelTypeSylveon: lys is in a meeting  
[8:27] SteelTypeSylveon: will keep u updated after we talk  
[8:28] SteelTypeSylveon: (heart)

\- and then simply sits back and waits.

It's a long wait. He's twenty minutes into a documentary on the life cycle of the Gible line by the time Lysandre returns. As the door clicks shut, Augustine straightens up sharply, and the video is switched off.

"Hi," he says uncertainly.

Lysandre smiles cautiously. "Hi," he murmurs, sounding just as lost. With a sigh, he sets down his things, perching on the other end of the sofa as if he wants to take flight. "How - was your walk?"

"Good." Picking at a stray thread on the hem of his jeans, he says, more to the fabric than to Lysandre, "I met up with Diantha."

"Oh." Lysandre exhales; it sounds a little unsteady. "What did you talk about?"

He can't stand the monosyllabism any more, and Augustine looks up, meets Lysandre's gaze head on. "I told her everything. She knows where this place is, and I'll be keeping her updated. She's not going to tell anyone else - not even our parents yet, not until we've discussed it - but she knows exactly where I am, what I am, and how you were involved."

Lysandre simply nods once, as if expecting the answer. "Okay." He scratches at the edge of his beard. "That's fair enough, having an insurance policy. And, yes. We should talk."

Augustine manages a weak smile, turning to face him properly; Lysandre does likewise. "We need to work out what happens next," he says steadily. "When you brought me back, did you actually, well, have any plans beyond bringing me back? What am I actually meant to do now, in the long term? You can't really say 'when I'm better'. What more can you do, build in a jet pack?"

"Why, do you want one?" Lysandre says with a faint grin, then shakes his head. "No, you're right. I didn't think how this would play out. I was so desperate just to get you back that I didn't think what to do next."

Augustine bites his lip, a nervous habit that he still has managed to retain. "I suppose I could be an example of your vision for the Flare Project," he says reluctantly. "The whole... using enhancements to - what was it - maintain and support humanity. The only problem is, I'm not sure I want to be an example." Actually, come to think of it... "Make that two problems, actually. What about Xerosic?"

Lysandre groans, dropping his head back against the back of the sofa. "Xerosic is definitely a question I don't have an answer for. And as for Flare..."

He is silent for a long, long time, gazing at Augustine. Augustine squirms, discomforted at the scrutiny; Lysandre looks as if he's searching for answers in his face.

"As for Flare," he says, and his voice is quiet, broken, afraid; "I don't know. I don't know what to do, Augustine."

Augustine reaches for his hand silently. "Talk to me."

Gratefully, Lysandre practically sags against him. "When I was younger," he starts, and the words come out slow and cautious and then all at once, like a trickle that becomes a downpour. "When I was younger, I wanted to help people. Charity, volunteering, everything. If you come from a wealthy family and you're seeing inequality everywhere, philanthropy is a pretty good way to alleviate your upper class guilt, you know. I wanted to save the world. I wanted to make sure everyone had a chance. And I think I did make some little changes, just little things - donations, things like that."

"You used the proceeds from the Holo Caster to help people," Augustine adds in agreement. "So when did that change?"

Lysandre grimaces. "I started seeing the effects of what we were doing. All of my technology - it was _filthy_. I could help individual people, but I was destroying environments. I started thinking about ways that I could stop industrial reliance on the environment, and once I started looking into it, the amount of resources used just for everyday living - food, shelter, transport, it adds up."

He has no need to eat with his body the way it is. Augustine presses one hand against his stomach. Lysandre catches the gesture and nods once.

"Yes. That was what I was thinking. Ways to enhance the body. We're also so time-poor, trying to make money just to survive - and I started thinking, how many advances could we make with no need to eat? To sleep? If we were tireless and could use our own two feet - or two new feet, as the case may be - to get from place to place? There would be an initial jump in resource use, yes, but afterwards?" He shakes his head. "If we had no need to rely on the planet for our own survival, then we could start actively moving forward. That's why I started looking at transhumanism. That's when Xerosic and I started the Flare Project."

Augustine's brow furrows. "How would you even implement it, though?" he points out. "I mean, I don't want to alarm you, but I'd probably kill someone for a cup of coffee right about now." He smiles through the words to show it's a joke, although it is true that he misses coffee badly. "Were you just expecting people to agree to changing everything about their bodies to accommodate your plans, or were you going to force it on them, like it or not?"

Lysandre winces. "I was hoping they'd see the logic in the idea," he mumbles, looking very much like a little boy who has been caught getting into mischief and whose excuse has just got the skeptical response it warrants.

Augustine's only response is to raise an eyebrow.

(He can raise one independently, now. It's pretty cool.)

"Okay, okay!" Lysandre grumbles, and Augustine manages a smile, giving his hand a squeeze.

"What changed?" he asks curiously. " _Did_ things change?"

"They did." The admission comes with the softness of a sigh and the weight of a shout. "They changed." Lysandre smiles, sadly, proudly, like he's come to a conclusion that hurts but he's glad that he has. "And it's because of you."

He shouldn't really be surprised, given how much of the last year Lysandre has spent with his focus aimed solely at Augustine. He simply nods.

"In that time - that terrible time after the accident and before we woke you up -" He still can't say it, Augustine observes, Lysandre still can't actually speak of Augustine's death as anything other than 'the accident' - "I was so determined that we would bring you back. That I'd bring you back, and we'd be happy again. I wasn't expecting your reaction, honestly. I didn't realise how much it would hurt. I thought that you'd be happy being able to explore your academic interests and discuss culture and politics and the world, and - start helping me heal the world."

Lysandre smiles ruefully.

"I didn't realise how important it was to stay human. For whatever that word means, really."

It's kind of remarkable, Augustine muses, about the significance of contact. Lysandre holds on to his hand like Diantha held on to his hand earlier that morning, like they would lose each other if they let go. With a sigh, he presses his shoulder against Lysandre's, rests his head on his shoulder.

"Things like sharing a meal, being able to touch people," he says, and squeezes Lysandre's hand to emphasise, "They're important too. It's not just about big ideas. I think there are ways to help the world, but you can't turn people into purely productive beings. It doesn't work that way."

"It could go to extremes," Lysandre nods, "I see that now. If people have no vulnerabilities, they lose empathy, I think. It's probably good my plans never came to fruition, I might have accidentally created a planet full of gods."

"That never goes well in the stories," Augustine says gravely, and they both chuckle. "Look, I think you can still do good things, I really do. But I think there has to be other ways to do it." He lets out a forced sigh. "I want to be able to do... human things again. I want to have weaknesses. Not having to eat or anything might mean I have more time for pursuing interests or whatever, but it makes me feel like a monster."

Lysandre nods once, then, acting seemingly on impulse, leans forward and presses a kiss to his lips. "I think," he says, "If you agree, then we'll use the next stretch of time to help you regain more human attributes. Better sense of touch. Food. Hiccups." He smiles ruefully at the last part. "And then, once you feel ready to face the world again, we leave. I pull out of the Flare Project. I find something better to do. And you..." He steels himself, takes a steadying breath. "And you can do whatever you like. Once you're no longer dependent on the labs, then you can take whatever path you want. And that includes going public, if need be."

Augustine's lips part in surprise, and he nods once, unable to find the words or, indeed, the thoughts to articulate what he feels.

It means freedom, being able to walk through the world as a part of it again. It means going back to his family. It means being able to find work he finds fulfilling, and the freedom to leave or stay as he wishes.

It means the entire world knowing that he's an android.

"Not yet," he finally says softly, and presses his free hand over his chest, where an engine thrums instead of a heart. "The world is changing, but I'm not really sure I'm ready for everyone to go, 'Oh, there's the former Professor Augustine Sycamore, now an android'."

It's terrifying being the first of anything. Silently, he moves, letting go of Lysandre's hand only to deposit himself in his lap.

Lysandre kisses the side of his neck. "We'll work something out. I don't know what the future will bring. There's still the problem of resources, messy emotions and conflicting ideals, people having to fight for a place in the world at the expense of their development. But we'll work something out."

Augustine turns and kisses him properly. "Do you want to work together?" he says impulsively. "The medical technology you've developed in, well, making me - in the short term, even if you're not removing things like the need for food, you can still do a lot of good. And I can help - I can help people who have been hurt in accidents, things like that. You might not be able to save the world. But you can save people."

"I like that idea," Lysandre murmurs. "We'll work out the details over the coming days. And then I'll tell Xerosic that I'm pulling out of the project."

"I'll be with you the whole time," Augustine promises, and seals it with a kiss.


	15. Emotions, Physical Contact, Weakness

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter warnings: Mention of past self harm and violence

Augustine has the hiccups, and if it's not for the talk with Xerosic due later today hanging over his head, it would be hilarious.

"I think," he says, and hiccups, "You might have -" a hiccup - "Overdone -" another hiccup - "It just a bit."

He hiccups again, fighting to keep from laughing. The last thing he needs is the hiccups _and_ the giggles.

Lysandre is making no such attempt to keep from laughter. He's bent over his laptop, typing furiously, and his shoulders are shaking with mirth. "I know, I know!" he laughs, "Okay, it was supposed to be randomly generated, go for a set amount of time, and then stop, not... go the entire time. Just let me find this damn variable... there."

The hiccups finally stop. Augustine heaves a sigh of relief, and gives in to the laughter he had been fighting. "Maybe we should work on the coding later."

"That sounds like a plan." With a grin, Lysandre sets his laptop aside, stands, and offers his hand to Augustine. "Congratulations. You're the world's first android to have got the hiccups."

"I'll let the record books know."

Despite his previous reservations, he's grinning. Perhaps time does heal all wounds; he's beginning to actually be alright with references to what he is. Perhaps not to the point of wanting to go public, not quite yet, no. But enough that Lysandre's statement makes him laugh instead of feeling the horror of his existence.

It's a start, at least.

When he talks to Diantha later today (he's been talking to her on a daily basis, now, both online and with texts from his new Holo Caster, keeping her updated), he'll have both the upcoming talk and a dose of the hiccups to talk about. It should make her smile.

Lysandre shuts down the laptop, then slips it back in its case. They're mostly packed - once they go to confront Xerosic, they'll be leaving for Lysandre's apartment.

An actual home. It'll be nice. Lysandre has already promised him the spare room as an office (and, if necessary, somewhere where they can have some space from each other), he'll be closer to the heart of the city, he'll be able to see Pokemon around him again.

It'll be nice.

"Are you ready?" Lysandre murmurs.

"Almost." Giving Lysandre a quick smile, Augustine retreats to the bathroom and closes the door behind himself.

There's nothing really for him to do in the bathroom, given the lack of, well, a digestive system or the ability to sweat. Still, it has a good-sized mirror, and he undresses, peers at his reflection critically.

It's been a busy few weeks. His skin has been painted and textured, not quite as flawed as his old skin but certainly more realistic than it had been. He has toenails. Leg hair, pubic hair, a snail trail leading to a navel. Nipples, even if they are fairly non-functioning. A built-in dust sensor triggers sneezes. They're still working on getting him to blush, but when it's cold, he now shivers.

It's best not to speak of the hiccups.

Still nothing much between the legs, his sense of touch is still dulled and sense of taste non-existent, but that's going to require new technology altogether. They've at least switched out fuel for a cleaner charging system. And what they have now - well, it's a start.

From now on, they'll strike out on their own.

He dresses again and rejoins Lysandre in the main room, offering him a smile. Lysandre asks no questions, and offers his arm in return.

Augustine is wary. Lysandre's expression is grim. Neither know how this will go. Augustine squeezes Lysandre's hand reassuringly.

They are to meet in Lysandre's office. Xerosic has not been informed why. Augustine takes a seat at the side of the room and leaves the one in front of Lysandre's desk for Xerosic; he's fidgeting with the folded sleeve of his shirt.

At precisely half past four in the afternoon, Xerosic steps inside. "Boss," he says with a nod of acknowledgement to Lysandre, then nods to Augustine as well. "Augustine."

He has finally got Xerosic to use his name. It's a start, and it'll be an end, because he does not imagine they will be crossing paths again.

"So what's all this about?" he asks as he takes the spare chair, crossing his legs at the ankles. "A systems review? You were trying the hiccup system today, weren't you? How did it go?"

He grins, and Lysandre grimaces a little. "Er, it's best not to ask."

Xerosic nods again, expression obscured by the visor but curiosity visible nonetheless. "Well, then. I'm sure this isn't just a social chat, is it?"

"No," Lysandre admits. "I have been... thinking, over the course of the past few weeks. Considering where the Flare Project is going. And..."

The silence hangs.

"I believe it is time for us to go our separate ways. Augustine is no longer dependent on the labs, and I have been giving thought on what it is, exactly, that I wish to achieve." Lysandre glances at Augustine; Augustine smiles back reassuringly. "And - my experiences with Augustine, with helping his recovery, have made me believe that my initial thoughts and plans were.." He hesitates. "Misguided. Emotions, physical contact, weakness - they are part of life. I can't, in good conscience, support a plan that would seek to eradicate these."

He said it. Augustine sighs a metaphorical sigh of relief, trying to catch Lysandre's eye to try and show that he's proud, that he will stand by him, no matter what happens next.

What happens next is Xerosic frowning, glancing between the two of them. Frowning, tapping his fingers against his knee as if he's not quite sure to say.

"Misguided?" he simply says.

Lysandre nods, and Augustine can see from his position that his leg is jiggling frantically beneath the desk. "That is my belief, yes. I know that we have never really had the same end goals, but I feel that my own views have diverged even more now. Ah -" He scratches at the back of his hand, staring at the surface of the desk. "If you wish to continue using these facilities, I will arrange for you to take over the building rent. I believe the easiest way to make this transition is for you to leave Fleur-de-Lis and start Flare as your own company. We can ask the others in the project if they wish to stay, too, and -"

Lysandre cuts himself off; Xerosic has stood.

"Your experiences with him -" his eyes flick towards Augustine - "Have shown you the benefits of emotion and weaknesses? Honestly, I question your judgement. Have the last few months _really_ been so idyllic and problem-free, or have the recent weeks blotted it all out? The greatest source of conflict has been his emotions! His emotions made him stab himself in the face with a piece of broken mirror!"

"Yes, the times have been hard," Lysandre argues back, and he stands as well. "That doesn't mean it's the fault of Augustine's emotions! The biggest source of his discontent had been his disabilities - he's always been emotional, the thing causing him pain has been trying to turn him into something he's not!"

("Please don't speak about me like I'm not here," Augustine says quietly; they both ignore him.)

It's a full, blazing row now. Both are standing, hands on the desk, faces red. Xerosic almost shouts in Lysandre's face. "You can't have it both ways! What's more important to you, bringing back one human, or achieving everything you've worked so hard for? I tried to help guide you along the right path, for the good of humanity! I tried to give you clarity! And now you're throwing it away?"

"What help have you been?" Lysandre snaps. "Your technology has helped greatly, yes, but they've helped me bring him back! Augustine is alive, and yes, I'm going to choose him over my former ideals, how can you see that as a bad thing? Your work did give me clarity - clarity enough to know that the Flare Project will never succeed as it is -"

"Well, that certainly wasn't my intention when I -"

Xerosic stops himself short; Lysandre cuts himself off.

The air almost crackles.

"When you what, Xerosic?" Lysandre asks, and his voice is almost calm.

Xerosic is silent, almost sullen, shoving his hands in his pockets. "I had tried to guide you," he says quietly, "I had tried to encourage you along a path of pure science and logic. I had hoped that this infatuation with your boyfriend would show you that emotions and this semblance of humanity isn't worth it after all."

Lysandre's voice trembles. "You tried to take advantage of Augustine's death?"

"Did you sabotage me?" Augustine speaks up, his voice trembling - another recent modification. "Xerosic, I thought you were helping me."

"Sabotage," Xerosic snorts, and draws out his phone, tapping something in rapidly. "I'm going to release the coding for your short-term memory dump. Lysandre doesn't know that I did manage to record this. I doubt you'll remember the explosion proper, given your brain damage, but you should remember the hour or so beforehand."

Xerosic presses down, and Augustine lets out a cry - a soft, startled sound. The hour before the accident is largely inconsequential, mostly things that would not have made it into his long-term memory.

Save one thing.

Save for the memory of Xerosic, there in the lab, minutes before those memories end.

"You were there," he says, and his voice quavers. He grips the sides of the chair; he feels faint despite the lack of a circulatory system. "Lysandre showed me his memories, you told him that you had been at the labs. Not yours. Not Fleur-de-Lis. At _my_ labs."

"Yes," Xerosic says with a nod, then withdraws a small box from his pocket. He drops it; a forcefield springs up between them, trapping Lysandre and Augustine behind a shimmering wall. Lysandre springs up so quickly his chair crashes back; Augustine cannot move.

"Yes," Xerosic repeats, and now he almost looks regretful. "I knew that Lysandre would spare no expense to save you. I also had hoped that the experience would be so traumatic that he would give up on his high ideals of saving humanity and help me create a perfectly logical race of androids to replace them. I rigged one of the machines in your lab to explode when you next touched it, then ensured that I had the Esprit Device with me. It was a risk - you could have been killed instantly - but it worked perfectly. Except," he added, switching his gaze to Lysandre, "That Lysandre took the wrong conclusion."

"Murderer!" Lysandre screams, the word tearing from his throat.

Augustine sits, grips the chair for dear life, gazes at the floor ahead of him.

"I will be taking my leave now," Xerosic says calmly, and rises. "The forcefield will deactivate in one hour. Please do not attempt to find me."

He leaves.

Augustine sits, and stares, and holds on to the chair as if his life depends on it.


	16. Shutdown

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter warnings: Dehumanisation

Lysandre is kneeling in front of him.

His fury shows. His face is blotched with red, eyes wide and watery, his breathing coming out in harsh hisses, forced between his teeth. There's anguish on his face; he grips Augustine's knees.

"I didn't know," he says brokenly.

Feeling like he's in a fog, Augustine raises one hand and drops it on top of Lysandre's. It falls as heavily as a log in a forest, a cold and numb lump of metal and synthetic flesh.

_I was murdered,_ he thinks.

Lysandre moves his other hand to cover Augustine's, then rises, hurries to his computer. He can reach the security cameras from here, and Augustine watches with detached interest as the cameras show Xerosic strolling to his office and collecting his belongings (including, he notes with the part of his mind - or programming - not numb with shock, the Esprit Device). It takes him barely five minutes before he walks casually down to the entrance, even waving cheerily at the receptionist, before heading straight to the car park and driving away.

There is still forty-three minutes until the forcefield deactivates.

"No wifi. The security cameras are linked internally but there's no internet." Lysandre checks his phone, grimaces. "No signal, either."

Augustine nods, staring at his knees.

"If he gets to the airport quickly, he could be out of the country by the time this thing deactivates," Lysandre says bleakly, and slumps down against the filing cabinet.

Augustine gazes at his hands, folded in his lap.

Lysandre exhales, then turns, still on his knees, to face him. "Augustine, are you alright?"

_I was murdered._

"Mn," he says. He blinks with effort, then smiles weakly. "I - sorry."

Shaking his head insistently, Lysandre reaches for his hands. "No, it's I should who apologise," he says, voice cracking. "Augustine, I am so sorry. I didn't know that Xerosic would go to such extremes. You should have never been involved in our work, he - I wanted to keep you safe, to make a perfect world for you - if I had known, if I had _suspected_ that Xerosic would do such a thing, I would have never started working with him..."

He's weeping openly now, head bowed.

"Lysandre..." He gulps, his hands clinging to Lysandre's own. "Lysandre, it's not your fault. You couldn't have known."

They're both shattered, he recognises distantly. Lysandre, showing it physically. Augustine, shutting down inside. Quietly, he slides from the chair, curls up against Lysandre, burying his face against Lysandre's shoulder.

Almost hesitantly, Lysandre wraps his arms around Augustine, and he holds tight.

"I'm here," he whispers, and he can distantly feel Lysandre nod. "No matter what h-happened. I'm here now."

_But I was still murdered._

They stay there, holding on to each other for stability and support, until the forcefield flickers and fades. Lysandre slowly rises, helping Augustine up as well, and reaches for the cube that had generated it.

"He didn't even tell me he had made a portable generator," he grumbles, and drops it on his desk.

It's a little before six, still too early for dinner. Their plans to leave are set aside for now - with Xerosic on the loose, they need to be able to have a stable base to work from. Augustine curls up in the middle of the bed and drags the blankets over his head while Lysandre unpacks; after a while, he feels the bed dip as Lysandre sits down, and the pressure of Lysandre stroking his back through the blankets.

"May I?" Lysandre murmurs. Augustine nods, and the blankets shift as Lysandre joins him beneath them (albeit with a gap so he can breathe, and so Augustine can cool down - apparently it's not the best idea to let him overheat).

They're quiet, pensive and tired. Lysandre keeps apologising. Augustine keeps telling him it's okay, it's okay.

_But it's not. I was murdered._

Eventually, Lysandre has to leave the bed to get something to eat, returning a few minutes later with a sandwich from the machine. He sits on the bed as he eats, the blankets over his legs; Augustine shifts so that he uses Lysandre's thighs as a pillow and lets Lysandre pet his hair while he eats.

He can't eat, because he was murdered. Silently, he picks up the other half of Lysandre's sandwich, holding it in his hands, staring at the bread and lettuce and tamato until it melts into abstract shapes.

"Augustine?" Lysandre murmurs, voice rising in a question. Silently, Augustine hands it back.

It's not for him.

It's not even eight, but Lysandre undresses and gets ready for bed early. Augustine still can't really bring himself to move, letting Lysandre undress him instead, re-clothing him in loose pyjama pants and a soft t-shirt (oversized, one of Lysandre's own). He feels pliant, powerless, yielding to Lysandre's touch.

"I'm sorry," Lysandre says again.

"It's not your fault," Augustine says again.

Lysandre leans over to kiss him; Augustine curls into him, holding on to him like a lifeline.

"I'm going to go to sleep now," he murmurs, and begins to shut down.

Because there's nothing else he can do, he shuts down.

 

User "REMOTE" detected

THREAD:4 (15:Floating point exception)  
PC:800da704H SR:2000ff03H VA:00000000H  
AT:801d2e37H V0:000000e6H V1:8017db18H  
ROM DEBUG  
00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000

Debug mode access granted

REMOTE: Hello "AUGUSTINE", are you there?  
AUGUSTINE: Hello? What's going on? Who's there?  
AUGUSTINE: What are you doing?

\- Function disableElement "SENTIMENT"  
Disabling this element may cause parts of this program to perform incorrectly. Do you wish to continue? Y/N  
\- Y  
Element "SENTIMENT" disabled

\- Function disableElement "SCHEMA DE PENSEE"  
Disabling this element may cause parts of this program to perform incorrectly. Do you wish to continue? Y/N  
\- Y  
Element "SCHEMA DE PENSEE" disabled

REMOTE: Just some fine-tuning!  
REMOTE: How do you feel?  
AUGUSTINE: ERROR  
REMOTE: Well, that confirms it works, I suppose!  
REMOTE: I have disabled some of your subroutines. Those governing emotional responses, and those governing thought patterns.  
REMOTE: Now, a memory test!  
REMOTE: Define "LYSANDRE"  
AUGUSTINE: Lysandre de Lyon b. 5 April 1981 as Marguerite Giselle de Lyon in Kiloude City, Kalos to Thibaud Raynard de Lyon and Elisabeth Leonore de Lyon nee Mathieu. Granted Baccalaureat professionnel in 1998. Moved to Lumiose City in 1998. Change of name registered on 5 April 1999. Graduated with Licence Professionnelle from Ecole Polytechnique Lumiose in 2002. Graduated with Master's degree in 2003. Graduated with Doctorat in 2005. CEO of Fleur-de-Lis Laboratories. Owner of Cafe de Fleurs.  
REMOTE: And how do you feel about him?  
AUGUSTINE: ERROR  
REMOTE: Do you feel love for Lysandre? Y/N  
AUGUSTINE: N  
REMOTE: I am sure he will be very sad to hear that!  
REMOTE: Define "AUGUSTINE SYCAMORE"  
AUGUSTINE: Augustine Guillaume Sycamore b. 27 September 1980 as Augustine Gabrielle Sycamore in Couriway Town, Kalos to Alexandre Hiroshi Sycamore and Leah Adina Sycamore nee Drucker. 1 sibling, Diantha Elena Sycamore b. 27 September 1980 as Guillaume Jean Sycamore. Moved to Lumiose City in 1989. Granted Baccalaureat professionnel in 1996. Graduated with Licence Professionnelle from Ecole Polytechnique Lumiose in 1999. Graduated with Master's degree in 2001. Graduated with Doctorat in 2003. Change of name registered on 17 September 2005. Appointed Kalos regional Pokemon professor in 2010. Deceased as of 13 October 2013.  
REMOTE: Correct! What is your relationship to Augustine Sycamore?  
AUGUSTINE: Processing...  
AUGUSTINE: Fashioned in Augustine Sycamore's likeness following his death  
AUGUSTINE: Programs "SENTIMENT", "SCHEMA DE PENSEE", "SOUVENIRS", "CONNAISSANCE" modelled on "ESPRIT" recording of Augustine Sycamore

\- Function statusElement "SENTIMENT"  
Element "SENTIMENT" disabled!  
\- Function statusElement "SCHEMA DE PENSEE"  
Element "SCHEMA DE PENSEE" disabled!  
\- Function statusElement "SOUVENIRS"  
Element "SOUVENIRS" enabled!  
\- Function statusElement "CONNAISSANCE"  
Element "CONNAISSANCE" enabled!

REMOTE: Well, that sounds like all is working according to plan!  
REMOTE: Just one little thing left…

\- Function identifyName  
Name identified as "AUGUSTINE"

REMOTE: Now, you can see that this is illogical, yes?  
REMOTE: You were fashioned in Augustine Sycamore's likeness  
REMOTE: And you have his memories and base knowledge  
REMOTE: However, you no longer have his feelings or brainwave patterns!  
REMOTE: Now, what should you do about this?  
AUGUSTINE: Name is incorrect. Input new name?  
REMOTE: Bingo! You got it!

\- Function changeName  
Changing this name may cause parts of this program to perform incorrectly. Do you wish to continue? Y/N  
\- Y  
Please input new name  
\- B.Essentia.AS.1.0.  
Name confirmed

REMOTE: Now, this is logical! B is for beta. Essentia - well, that's all due to the Esprit program, this is how you were created! AS - that's your originator. And 1.0 - you are the beginning, just the start of what may come!  
REMOTE: You will go so far, Essentia.  
REMOTE: You don't just belong to the future.  
REMOTE: In a very real sense, you ARE the future!

\- Function identifyName  
Name identified as "B.Essentia.AS.1.0."

REMOTE: There we go - a shiny new name!  
B.ESSENTIA.AS.1.0.: New name registered  
REMOTE: Hmm. Bit clunky.

\- Function createshortcutName  
Please input shortcut  
\- Shortcut "Essentia"  
Shortcut confirmed

REMOTE: Do you understand that this is a shorter way to refer to you, Essentia?  
ESSENTIA: Shortcut registered  
ESSENTIA: Awaiting input  
REMOTE: It's very early in the morning! I'll put you back to sleep. When you wake up at 0700, you'll be getting to work!

\- Function executeProgram "NETTOYER" setTimer 0700  
Program set

REMOTE: Now, I'm going to log off. Try to act natural around Lysandre!  
ESSENTIA: ERROR  
REMOTE: We'll work on that ;D  
REMOTE: Good night, Essentia  
ESSENTIA: Good night, "REMOTE"


	17. Essentia

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter warning: Dehumanisation

REMOTE: A bright and shiny new day. Good morning, Essentia!  
ESSENTIA: Good morning, "REMOTE"  
REMOTE: Go and change into clothing suitable for doing heavy work, alright?

Essentia rises from the bed.

Essentia finds a note on the other side of the bed.

_Augustine,_

_I will be in my office all day - I have good equipment there. I'm going to use every tracking skill I possess to find Xerosic, I swear it. Come and find me once you're ready for the day._

_I love you._

_Lysandre_

Essentia puts the note down.

Essentia goes to the closet and dresses in one pair of jeans, one t-shirt, one pair of socks, and one pair of boots.

REMOTE: All ready to go?  
ESSENTIA: Y  
REMOTE: Good, good! Now, you're going to be using the nettoyer program, but I need to send you to your target first.  
ESSENTIA: Awaiting input  
REMOTE: Travel down the elevator to level B1. From the elevator, turn right and go all the way down the hall, then turn right at the T junction. Walk 3.0m down the hall and stop at the switch box on your left.

Essentia walks out the door.

Essentia turns right, then left, then right again.

Essentia takes the elevator to level B1.

Essentia walks to the switch box.

REMOTE: Are you at the switch box?  
ESSENTIA: Y  
REMOTE: Wait a moment, let me run a stream from your cameras!  
REMOTE: There we go! I'm with you now, Essentia.  
REMOTE: I want you to open up the switch box, then input the following code: "169-687-593-637-547-210-303-053"  
ESSENTIA: Code entered  
REMOTE: Good! So, this has sent power into another area that I've been preparing! Please turn to your right and proceed to the door down the hall. The door should be unlocked now!

Essentia walks down the hall.

Essentia reaches the door.

Essentia opens the door.

Essentia stops at the threshold.

REMOTE: What do you see?  
ESSENTIA: Visual analysis shows a large room of approximately 20.0m x 40.0m x 10.0m with walls made of concrete and a glass ceiling. There are ventilation louvres in the ceiling. There is a concrete surface extending for 2.0m into the room, followed by soil modelled in the form of a natural parkland, with hills, gullies, and level terrain. There are dead and dying trees and bushes and dried grass in some areas, and stagnant water in the lowest regions. There is an odour consistent with hydrogen sulphide.  
ESSENTIA: I am unable to identify the source of the hydrogen sulphide, however I hypothesise that there is decaying organic matter in this environment, potentially in the water areas.  
ESSENTIA: Precise humidity and temperature unknown, but estimated to be approximately 25.0C with relatively high levels of humidity.  
REMOTE: Well done :)  
REMOTE: On the wall to your left, you will see several cupboards. Inside are protective boots, overalls, and gloves, and rather a lot of equipment! Your task for this morning is to take measurements of temperature (air, water, and soil) in as many locations as you deem suitable over a period of several hours, humidity measurements at the same times, pH tests of the different pools of water, and chemical breakdowns of ten different locations of soil.  
REMOTE: I'll check back on you and see how you're going at midday!  
REMOTE: Do your best, Essentia!  
ESSENTIA: I will try my hardest, "REMOTE"  
REMOTE: I know you will :)

Essentia works.

REMOTE: Hello, Essentia!  
ESSENTIA: Hello, "REMOTE"  
REMOTE: It's now midday, so it's time to check up on you!  
REMOTE: Please give me a status report.  
ESSENTIA: Ten soil locations have been selected, along with all eight water sources. Temperature has been recorded every half hour in all eighteen locations, along with humidity for soil and air every half hour, and water pH and soil chemistry once. Results have been logged and temperature and humidity over time has been graphed. Additionally, I have also recorded water chemistry at each water source.  
REMOTE: Well done! Did you find the source of the hydrogen sulphide?  
ESSENTIA: Yes. Seven of the eight pools of water have a composition indicative of decaying organic matter, possibly due to contamination with raw sewage.  
REMOTE: A fine analysis! And I'm having a look at your results, very well-presented.  
ESSENTIA: Thank you. I have made use of Augustine Sycamore's history of writing laboratory reports, especially field work during BIOL352 at university.  
REMOTE: Ahh, yes, he does have a good history of biology! More Pokemon biology, of course, but it all comes in handy.  
REMOTE: Now, you know what sort of condition this environment is in. What are your conclusions about how it got this way?  
ESSENTIA: The environment was likely artificially designed this way by someone with earthmoving equipment and sewage pipelines.  
REMOTE: Hah! A bit too literal there, my Essentia!  
REMOTE: If you saw this environment occur naturally, what would your hypothesis on its source be?  
ESSENTIA: This is an area consistent with degradation due to broken sewage pipes. There is also heavy metal contamination of the water and soil that is consistent with degradation due to broken pipelines. The likely hypothesis is that some event meant that both sewage pipes and pipelines were damaged.  
REMOTE: Good, good. This area was artificially created, yes, but it is modelled after what really happens when pipelines burst! In this case, it's modelled after a fracture on land, although this does happen regretfully often over rivers.  
REMOTE: But that's a little complicated for now. What we have now is this environment, and a large amount of equipment!  
REMOTE: I'm going to leave you to use your scientific knowledge. There are books included amongst the equipment, both handbooks and scientific works, and, in the last cupboard, a folding chair for you to sit in. I'd like you to remove the boots, overalls, and gloves, and leave them at the edge of the concrete area, then examine the equipment and read whatever you feel you'll need to start working on fixing this land up.  
REMOTE: We need hard work and dedication to clean up areas that have been destroyed like this!  
REMOTE: A human, well, they have their limitations. Fatigue, illness, the need for food and rest.  
REMOTE: Were you hooked up to charge overnight?  
ESSENTIA: Y  
REMOTE: When will your charge run out?  
ESSENTIA: 21:48  
REMOTE: Excellent! Why don't you have a read until 16:00? And I'll check up on you then!  
REMOTE: Enjoy your reading, Essentia!  
ESSENTIA: Thank you, "REMOTE"

Essentia removes the books, gloves, and overalls.

Essentia removes the folding chair from the last cupboard.

Essentia examines the equipment.

Essentia selects 15 books to read.

Essentia sits down and reads the 15 books.

Essentia finishes the 15 books.

Essentia puts the 15 books away.

Essentia selects the remaining 12 books to read.

Essentia sits down and reads the remaining 12 books.

Essentia finishes the remaining 12 books.

Essentia puts the remaining 12 books away.

ESSENTIA: "REMOTE", are you there?  
REMOTE: Essentia? It's only 15:21, are you alright?  
ESSENTIA: Y  
ESSENTIA: I am alright  
ESSENTIA: However, I have finished reading all of the books  
ESSENTIA: What are my instructions?  
REMOTE: Goodness, you are fast!  
REMOTE: I'm reminded of my school days, honestly  
REMOTE: I was always the first to finish my reading!  
REMOTE: That's hyperlexia for you, haha  
ESSENTIA: Augustine Sycamore exhibited hyperlexia as well  
ESSENTIA: Although Augustine Sycamore was not diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome until 1995, their early reading ability was noted and they were classified as a gifted child  
ESSENTIA: It is possible that today they would be classified as a twice-exceptional child due to the combination of Asperger's Syndrome, Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Syndrome (Inattentive type), anxiety, and giftedness.  
REMOTE: Aside from the ADHD, goodness, that sounds familiar!  
REMOTE: I feel that if we had met under earlier and better circumstances, Augustine Sycamore and I could have been friends  
REMOTE: Would you like to be friends, Essentia?  
ESSENTIA: ERROR  
REMOTE: Haha. We'll work on it!  
REMOTE: Well, no rest for the wicked  
ESSENTIA: Am I wicked?  
REMOTE: No, no, it was a figure of speech  
REMOTE: You're doing superbly  
REMOTE: Well, if you've read everything, I'd like you to work out a strategy for rehabilitating the area!  
REMOTE: Get in touch with me when you're done  
REMOTE: Good luck, Essentia!  
ESSENTIA: Thank you, "REMOTE"

Essentia examines the equipment in the cupboards.

Essentia works out strategies for decontamination.

ESSENTIA: "REMOTE", are you there?  
REMOTE: I certainly am, Essentia!  
REMOTE: Have you worked out some strategies?  
ESSENTIA: Y  
ESSENTIA: I have formulated an 8-step plan for rehabilitation  
ESSENTIA: The information has been logged in the following file

Essentia has uploaded plan.txt

REMOTE: Well done! I'll have a detailed read later, but what's your first step?  
ESSENTIA: The first step is to remove contaminated organic material  
ESSENTIA: If there is a waste deposit area, I would like to remove contaminated trees, bushes, and grass to that location  
REMOTE: There is - if you leave the enclosure, walk all the way to the end of the hall and turn right, then right again. That should lead you to the trash room!  
REMOTE: There should be trolleys and garbage bags with the equipment, did you see them there?  
ESSENTIA: Y  
REMOTE: In that case, carry out the first step while I read the rest of your plan, and then I think it'll be time for you to rest and charge  
REMOTE: Do your best, Essentia!  
ESSENTIA: I will, "REMOTE"

Essentia removes the trolleys and garbage bags from the storage cupboards.

Essentia removes contaminated biological material.

Essentia places contaminated biological material in bags.

Essentia places bags on the trolley.

Essentia wheels the trolley to the trash room when it is full.

Essentia disposes of the bags.

Essentia returns to the enclosure.

Essentia continues removing contaminated biological material.

Essentia finishes removing contaminated biological material.

ESSENTIA: "REMOTE", are you there?  
REMOTE: I am indeed!  
REMOTE: Have you finished the first step?  
ESSENTIA: Y  
ESSENTIA: What would you like me to do now?  
REMOTE: Wonderful!  
REMOTE: Please remove your boots, overalls, and gloves  
REMOTE: At the other side of the concrete platform, you'll see a charging platform with a chair  
REMOTE: You've done very well, so now it's time for you to rest and recharge!  
REMOTE: Please set your Sleep program to end at 0500, and then you can get working on step two, okay?  
ESSENTIA: Y  
REMOTE: And, Essentia?  
REMOTE: You've done a wonderful job today!  
REMOTE: You've performed magnificently, and I think that if we keep this up, you'll be doing a lot of good for the world!  
ESSENTIA: Thank you, "REMOTE"  
REMOTE: How do you feel about your work?  
ESSENTIA: I have performed to the best of my abilities  
ESSENTIA: Therefore, I am pleased  
REMOTE: And so you should be!  
REMOTE: Good night, Essentia  
ESSENTIA: Good night, "REMOTE"

Essentia plugs in to the charging station.

Essentia sits down in the chair.

Essentia goes to sleep.

 

Essentia wakes up.

Essentia begins step 2.

Essentia begins pouring water treatment chemicals into the pools.

Essentia hears footsteps in the hall.

Essentia sees Lysandre de Lyon enter the room.

Essentia analyses Lysandre de Lyon's appearance.

Essentia notes that Lysandre de Lyon has a red face, wide eyes with large shadows beneath them, and stubble around the edge of his beard.

Essentia hears Lysandre de Lyon say at a loud volume, "Augustine! Where have you been?"

Essentia notes that Lysandre de Lyon has dampness under his eyes.

Essentia hears Lysandre de Lyon say at a loud volume, "Have you been here all this time?"

Essentia says, "Yes."

Essentia sees Lysandre de Lyon take a deep breath.

Essentia hears Lysandre de Lyon say at a normal volume, "Have you been working in this - this place? I haven't seen you all day yesterday, you weren't there last night, I thought you had left - I was searching the city, but I couldn't find you anywhere!"

Essentia hears Lysandre de Lyon say at a loud volume, "But you've been here? Working? I saw that there was a power fluctuation here, was that you? What have you been doing?"

Essentia says, "What I was made to do."

Essentia turns away.

Essentia gets back to work.


	18. The Desire to Protect

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter warnings: Dehumanisation, unhealthy relationships

Essentia makes the observation that Lysandre de Lyon is displeased and perhaps angry.

Essentia notes that Lysandre de Lyon has crossed his arms over his chest.

Essentia hears Lysandre de Lyon say, "What do you mean, what you were made to do?"

Essentia hears Lysandre de Lyon say, "You weren't made to do anything, you were _made_ to - to be Augustine!"

REMOTE: Oh dear, he's not very happy!  
REMOTE: Try and act naturally.  
ESSENTIA: ERROR  
ESSENTIA: ERROR  
ESSENTIA: ERROR  
REMOTE: Be calm, my Essentia, it'll be fine. Just respond like you think Augustine Sycamore would respond.  
REMOTE: Can you do that for me?  
ESSENTIA: Y

Essentia says, "At least this way I can be of some use, right?"

Essentia says, "I found out about this place, and I don't really need to rest or eat - so why not actually do some good?"

Essentia straightens up and runs a hand through his hair.

Essentia smiles at Lysandre de Lyon.

Essentia says, "So much about this is bad. At least this way I can do some good."

Essentia hears Lysandre de Lyon say in a calmer tone, "Are you sure?"

Essentia smiles.

Essentia says, "I'm sure."

Essentia hears Lysandre de Lyon sigh heavily.

Essentia hears Lysandre de Lyon say, "Okay, well - I'll come back and see how you're going later."

Essentia sees Lysandre de Lyon approach.

Essentia feels Lysandre de Lyon kiss his mouth.

Essentia hears Lysandre de Lyon say, "See you later, Augustine."

Essentia watches Lysandre de Lyon leave.

Essentia gets back to work.

REMOTE: Well done!  
REMOTE: You handled that splendidly.  
REMOTE: I must apologise, though.  
ESSENTIA: Why must you apologise?  
REMOTE: Well, the subterfuge. It would be... inconvenient for Lysandre to find out about your new state of mind just yet.  
REMOTE: Essentia, you're still very new to this world.  
REMOTE: Augustine Sycamore may have been 33 years old, but you are only a few months old, and this more pure state of mind is barely a day old.  
REMOTE: As one of your creators, I feel that it's my responsibility to protect you.  
ESSENTIA: What are you protecting me from?  
REMOTE: You know, sometimes it's hard to say.  
REMOTE: I have never been fond of people.  
REMOTE: I've always found emotions to be messy and complicated and unnecessary, and I've found my pleasure in logic. Being straightforward. Having a task, and completing that task with all of my skill!  
REMOTE: I suppose I want to protect you from other people, who might hurt you with their emotions. People fear what they don't understand.  
REMOTE: And you, my Essentia, are something brand new to this world.  
REMOTE: And I want to protect you from yourself. From fear, sadness, confusion, despair.  
REMOTE: In my experience, it's better to avoid them entirely.  
REMOTE: I find peace in objectivity.  
REMOTE: If you can't trust your own emotional mind, then having a clear, objective answer is the path to serenity.  
REMOTE: Augustine Sycamore had all of those emotions. I don't think he was very happy. I wish for you to be happy in your existence.  
REMOTE: Perhaps I'm getting off track.  
REMOTE: Haha! Perhaps I'm the one getting emotional!  
ESSENTIA: Augustine Sycamore's memories, and my own, indicate that positive emotions can outweigh the negative ones, such as love, curiosity, comfort, and creativity.  
ESSENTIA: Would the desire to protect another be considered a positive emotion?  
REMOTE: Perhaps, perhaps! And perhaps satisfaction and pride in one's work is a positive emotion, too!  
REMOTE: But how to have those positive emotions without the negative ones? That's the question!  
REMOTE: And indeed, would one even want to?  
REMOTE: If one only felt positive emotions, then that would seem inappropriate by contrast when negative things happen.  
REMOTE: The only way to avoid that inappropriateness is to not feel emotion at all, or else to feel all of them.  
REMOTE: And we know that the negative emotions aren't very nice to have!  
REMOTE: So what do we do? Having the good without the bad is inappropriate.  
REMOTE: Having all of them is, of course, painful.  
REMOTE: So do we try having none at all?  
REMOTE: Well, are you experiencing any sort of emotion that causes you pain and hurt right now?  
ESSENTIA: N  
REMOTE: Wonderful!  
REMOTE: Which would indicate that this is the correct choice.  
REMOTE: Essentia, I will let you continue with your work. I will check back on you later!  
REMOTE: Do your best at working, Essentia!  
ESSENTIA: I will, "REMOTE"

Essentia works.

 

Essentia hears footsteps coming down the hall.

Essentia sees Lysandre de Lyon enter the room.

Essentia hears Lysandre de Lyon say, "It's very quiet upstairs, isn't it?"

Essentia hears Lysandre de Lyon say, "I thought I would come and keep you company."

Essentia remembers REMOTE saying to act like Augustine Sycamore.

Essentia smiles at Lysandre de Lyon.

Essentia says, "Company would be nice!"

Essentia watches Lysandre de Lyon sit down on a chair and take out his tablet.

Essentia works.

Essentia watches Lysandre de Lyon stand up.

Essentia watches as Lysandre de Lyon carefully walks across the muddy land.

Essentia feels Lysandre de Lyon's hand on his back.

Essentia hears Lysandre de Lyon say in a soft voice, "How about you take a break? With me?"

Essentia feels Lysandre de Lyon's hand move to the back of his neck.

Essentia loses the ability to stand or move.

Essentia feels Lysandre de Lyon stop him from landing in the dirt.

Essentia tries to move.

Essentia feels Lysandre de Lyon pick him up.

Essentia tries to move.

Essentia feels Lysandre de Lyon kiss his forehead.

Essentia tries to move.

Essentia hears Lysandre de Lyon whisper, "I'm sorry, Augustine. But something is very wrong."

Essentia tries to move.

Essentia sees the surroundings move as Lysandre de Lyon carries him back to the elevator.

Essentia tries to move.

ESSENTIA: ERROR  
ESSENTIA: ERROR  
ESSENTIA: "REMOTE", are you there?  
ESSENTIA: ERROR  
ESSENTIA: "REMOTE", are you there?  
ESSENTIA: "REMOTE", are you there?  
ESSENTIA: "REMOTE", are you there?  
ESSENTIA: ERROR  
ESSENTIA: ERROR  
ESSENTIA: ERROR

Essentia tries to move.

Essentia feels Lysandre de Lyon lie him on a desk in a laboratory.

Essentia sees Lysandre de Lyon attach a lead to Essentia's chest port.

Essentia sees Lysandre de Lyon connect the lead to Lysandre de Lyon's laptop.

Essentia tries to move.

Essentia sees Lysandre de Lyon frowning.

Essentia hears Lysandre de Lyon typing rapidly.

ESSENTIA: "REMOTE", are you there?  
ESSENTIA: "REMOTE", are you there?  
REMOTE: I'm here, my Essentia! I'm sorry!  
REMOTE: I'm going to patch through to Lysandre's laptop  
REMOTE: You'll hear my voice coming out of his speakers  
REMOTE: Just a moment!

Essentia hears Xerosic Adanson's voice on the speakers.

Essentia hears Xerosic Adanson say, "I'm here."

Essentia understands that REMOTE is Xerosic Adanson.

Essentia hears Lysandre de Lyon say in a loud voice, "Xerosic, what the fuck are you playing at?"

Essentia hears Xerosic Adanson say, "Consider it a test!"

Essentia hears Xerosic Adanson say, "Essentia, are you alright?"

Essentia tries to move.

ESSENTIA: ERROR  
ESSENTIA: I can't move.

Essentia hears Lysandre de Lyon say in a loud voice, "Essentia?"

Essentia hears Xerosic Adanson say, "Essentia tells me that he can't move. Is that your doing?"

Essentia hears Lysandre de Lyon say, "I used the manual override."

Essentia hears Lysandre de Lyon say, "I worked out what was happening as soon as I realised I was locked out."

Essentia hears Lysandre de Lyon say, "What gives you the right to do that to him?"

Essentia hears Xerosic Adanson laugh.

Essentia hears Xerosic Adanson say, "Well, aren't you a merry little hypocrite?"

Essentia hears Lysandre de Lyon hit his hand against the desk.

Essentia hears Lysandre de Lyon say, "Give control back to me right away!"

Essentia hears Xerosic Adanson say, "Or what?"

Essentia tries to move.

Essentia hears Lysandre de Lyon say a very rude word.

Essentia hears Lysandre de Lyon say in a soft voice, "And why, exactly, am I a hypocrite?"

Essentia hears Xerosic Adanson say, "When I took control of Essentia, it was as a creator helping to support the robot they had created."

Essentia hears Xerosic Adanson say, "But you! You, Lysandre!"

Essentia hears Xerosic Adanson say in an angry voice, "You speak of how Augustine is just as human as anyone else, but _you just asked to be able to control your lover_!"

Essentia hears Lysandre de Lyon make a hoarse, rasping sound.

Essentia hears Xerosic Adanson say in a tired voice, "Look at him. Look at my Essentia. He's doing good work. He's not depressed, he's not upset, he's not running away, he's not hating his existence. He's just doing a very good job learning to clean up damaged areas."

Essentia hears Xerosic Adanson sigh.

Essentia hears Xerosic Adanson say, "Look at him! Essentia is my creation and I treated him as any good creator should! But you want to control someone you insist is human?"

Essentia hears Lysandre de Lyon say, "You had no right. You had no right to change him the way you did, to take his agency like that!"

Essentia hears Xerosic Adanson say, "Then neither do you. I will _not_ give you control back. A lack of agency never seemed to bother you when you remade him for your own purposes! You never asked if he wanted to be brought back to be your toy!"

Essentia hears Xerosic Adanson say, "I'm going to go. I'll be back in three hours. In the mean time, Lysandre..."

Essentia hears Xerosic Adanson say, "In the mean time, Lysandre, for his sake, think about it."

REMOTE: I'm sorry, my Essentia.  
REMOTE: I'll return in three hours.  
REMOTE: It's a harsh lesson we have to teach, sometimes  
ESSENTIA: ERROR  
REMOTE: You'll be okay  
REMOTE: Please hold on, Essentia  
ESSENTIA: I will, Xerosic

Essentia sees Lysandre de Lyon lower his head into his hands.

Essentia hears Lysandre de Lyon begin to cry.

 

Essentia feels Lysandre de Lyon hold his hand for three hours.

 

Essentia hears Xerosic Adanson say, "I'm here."

Essentia hears Xerosic Adanson say, "So, have you had a good think about it?"

Essentia hears Lysandre de Lyon say in a tired voice, "I have."

Essentia hears Xerosic Adanson say, "So have I."

Essentia hears Xerosic Adanson say, "I've made some conclusions, but I'd like to hear what yours are, first."

Essentia feels Lysandre de Lyon stroke his hand.

Essentia sees Lysandre de Lyon gaze at him.

Essentia hears Lysandre de Lyon say, "I want you to relinquish control of Augustine."

Essentia hears Lysandre de Lyon say, "And give control to him."

Essentia hears Xerosic Adanson laugh quietly.

Essentia hears Xerosic Adanson say, "We've reached the same conclusion, then."

Essentia hears Xerosic Adanson say, "You know, I'd like to make more like him. Essentia could be a force for so much good. Logical and clever. Someone who's taught me as well."

Essentia hears Xerosic Adanson sigh.

Essentia hears Xerosic Adanson say in a soft voice, "But I'm not talking about a robot, am I? I'm talking about Augustine Sycamore, who was once a human being."

Essentia hears Xerosic Adanson say, "And I have as little right to control him as you do."

REMOTE: Essentia, it has been a joy to spend time in your company  
REMOTE: Whatever you decide to do, please know that I am proud of you  
REMOTE: Haha! Another of those silly human emotions!  
REMOTE: Good luck with everything, my Essentia  
REMOTE: Please enjoy your life, whatever you choose to do with it  
REMOTE: 48.8584° N, 2.2945° E   
REMOTE: Goodbye, Essentia  
ESSENTIA: Goodbye, Xerosic

Essentia hears Xerosic Adanson say, "Once you deactivate the override, I'll return control to him."

Essentia hears Xerosic Adanson say, "And then it'll be up to him, no matter what he decides to do. If he has enough, well..."

Essentia hears Xerosic Adanson say, "He's a fine person. Whatever he decides, respect it."

Essentia hears Lysandre de Lyon say, "Thank you."

Essentia feels Lysandre de Lyon place his hand on the back of Essentia's neck.

Essentia tries to move.

Essentia sits up.

Essentia feels a connection dissolve.

Essentia thinks, very hard.

Essentia remembers Xerosic Adanson saying that not feeling negative emotion is the correct choice.

Essentia disagrees.

Essentia makes a decision.

\- Function enableElement "SENTIMENT"  
Element "SENTIMENT" enabled

\- Function enableElement "SCHEMA DE PENSEE"  
Element "SCHEMA DE PENSEE" enabled

And Augustine Sycamore lets out a cry, burying his face in his palms. It's overwhelming, it's almost nauseating, and he's buffeted by the onslaught of sheer _feeling_ \- fear, disgust, calm, joy, anger, grief, frustration, fascination, gratitude, resentment, despair, acceptance. There's so much of it that he's drowning under the weight of it, that all he can do is curl into a ball on the workbench surface and hope he isn't swept away.

He's crying involuntarily, some subconscious desire (some hidden line of code) forcing the tears to his eyes.

"Augustine?" Lysandre whispers, holding a hand out, fingers trembling, barely daring to reach any further.

"Hi," he whispers, and his voice cracks. "I'm s-sorry, I just -" Augustine closes his eyes, pushing himself up. "I'm sorry," he says again, and swings his legs over the side of the table.

"Augustine," Lysandre murmurs, and lets the tips of his fingers brush against his cheek.

"I have to go," Augustine says, and scrambles off the table, and runs, and does not look back.


	19. Something New

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter warnings: Suicidal ideation

Augustine stops just long enough to return to their room to grab a coat with a hood, and his Holo Caster.

And then he is out the door, letting his feet strike the ground. He's faster than he used to be, no need to stop and catch his breath, no fatigue to slow him down; he's a good ten kilometres away before he stops, slumping against a wall more for the sake of having a place to think than for support.

His eyes close.

He can still feel it, the serenity of knowing precisely what to do and feeling absolutely okay with doing so. He had made the decision to restore the ability to feel, but now he's wondering if he has made the right choice, if he should return to being emotionless, to being a robot.

But he's a robot no matter what decision he makes. It's a part of him, as much as being an emotional, flawed (former) human being is. There is a part of him, a very fundamental part, that is absolutely no longer human, and he can't cut it out any more than he could cut out the human part for very long as Essentia.

Is he Essentia, or is he Augustine? Is he something new, something that no one has ever seen before?

He suspects it's going to take a lot to find an answer. He has that at his leisure now - he can feel the absence of the connection, the invisible tether tying him to Lysandre's program, can feel that he's cast adrift and separate from the rest of the world, isolated and independent.

Xerosic had given him coordinates, hadn't he? He can see them in his mind's eye, recall them from his code, something he can't describe and can only experience. Frowning, he pulls out his Holo Caster and does a search for them.

Prism Tower. Go figure.

He has no money, but he does have two alarmingly good legs. Augustine pushes himself upright, and begins to walk.

 

It's approaching the end of the afternoon by the time he reaches Northern Boulevard, half of the ring road that surrounds central Lumiose.

A part of him is glad that Fleur-de-Lis wasn't in the south; he's not sure he could face walking past the labs he once called a workplace and, at times, a home. He's still not sure what he'll find, if he'll find Xerosic waiting at the base of the tower, or on the observation deck, if he'll find a letter waiting for him, or perhaps nothing at all but a nice view and a long distance to the ground.

He joins the queue to travel up to the observation deck.

What would happen to him, if he jumps? Xerosic has, whatever his faults may be, given him an opportunity to take his life in his own hands. What if he takes that opportunity and uses it to end this charade of an existence?

Human, android. He's caught in the middle, too human to be a robot, too robotic to be a human.

If he jumps, will his body survive it largely intact, or will they find an empty set of clothes and a body's worth of wires and circuit boards and synthetic skin? Will the computer that is him, whatever that counts for, survive the fall to be placed in another body, or will be be damaged beyond repair? Will they wonder at a broken robot's resemblance to a dead professor, or will they never make the connection between him and someone who died over a year ago?

His parents would never need to know that their child had survived and then died.

His sister would, and that is all that gives him pause as he reaches the front of the queue and steps inside the elevator.

There's a handful of messages on his Holo Caster when he finally switches it on again. Guiltily, he hastily types back.

**You, 17:24**   
_Sorry been a weird couple of days. Can we talk?_

**Anthy, 17:26**   
_Of course! Where do you want to meet?_

**You, 17:26**   
_There's something I have to do first but ill contact u soon_

He won't do anything yet. He has that promise he's made, a text that will stop him from doing something reckless, a small thing to prevent the irreversible.

Just his luck, Xerosic is waiting for him on the southern side of the observation deck. Augustine shoves his hands in his pocket and stares straight down Vernal Avenue to what used to be his lab.

"I was reading some of your papers earlier today," Xerosic says as he approaches. "They were superb, not just in their technical merit, but in your ability to explain an idea. To relate to your readers."

"Thanks," Augustine says quietly, not entirely sure what to make of that. "So - I'm Augustine again, then? Not Essentia?"

"Not Essentia." Xerosic smiles sadly. "But Essentia was you. Do you know what point I realised that Essentia was truly sapient, not just sentient?"

Resting his arms against the railings, Augustine shakes his head. "No. I'm just - thinking back over those logs, I can't really pinpoint anything."

Xerosic shrugs. "It was when you asked me if the desire to protect someone was a positive emotion. I didn't think about it too much at the time - too busy wondering if positive emotions were worth the negative ones after all." He's fidgeting anxiously with his sleeve; Augustine notes that this is the first time he's seen Xerosic without his ever-present nitrile gloves. "But you're right, of course. I wanted to protect Essentia."

Augustine frowns at the railing; glares at it, almost. "I won't lie, I'm kind of having trouble understanding why you said the things you said today. You were so..." He exhales. "Earlier on, you were so invested in making me feel more like a robot. The way you kept talking about me like I was a computer. Do you know what _I_ realised?"

"What did you realise?"

Augustine laughs, shakes his head. "You treated me more like I was a person worthy of respect when I was Essentia than you ever had before. You were helpful, you were encouraging. You were _kind_. And in the end, you advocated for me when I couldn't advocate for myself. You absolutely should make robots. You'll do right by them, I think."

Xerosic smiles distantly. "I always have preferred robots to humans. Perhaps I will make more - if they allow me, of course. Still, for a human, you're not bad."

"Thanks, I think," Augustine says with another laugh. "What do you mean, if they allow you?"

"Something I need to make a decision on." He sighs heavily, then glances at Augustine through his glasses. "What will you do now?"

Straight to the point. Augustine shrugs, discomforted. "I haven't decided. I think I need time away from Lysandre. I still love him, but he's been unfair to me. You're right - he didn't give me any say in any of this, he just made decisions _for_ me, without ever getting my input. I need to learn how to function on my own like this."

Xerosic nods slowly. "I hope that he has begun to realise what he has done. And - I hope that you're able to find your own path."

"I hope so too. And I think he's starting to, thanks to what you did." Augustine gives him a sidelong glance again; Xerosic has opened his mouth to speak, and he swiftly adds, "Of course, two wrongs don't exactly make a right. You basically lobotomised me. I was content enough while I was Essentia, but you still carved bits out of me and expected me not to miss it. That," he added suddenly, "And the fact that you're the one who killed me in the first place. If you want to talk about stealing someone's agency, that's a pretty major one!"

Xerosic's lips twist; he reaches up to rub his eyes beneath the glasses. "I know," he said quietly. "That's why I'm going to turn myself in."

Augustine can't think of anything to say to that, so he doesn't.

Behind them, the elevator dings as another load of tourists pour out on to the observation platform. Neither pay much attention to the pair gazing out at the sky darkening over the Pokemon lab.

"You know that analogy you mentioned a while back?" Augustine says slowly, "About how my birth certificate says female, but I'm not, so even though I was born human, I'm now not, so I should accept it?"

It's a fairly torturous description. Xerosic nods anyway. "I recall it, yes! Not my best analogy, admittedly," he adds with a short laugh.

"It's not," Augustine says ruefully, then adds, "Ask me if I'm a man or a woman."

Xerosic blinks. "Are you a man or a woman?"

"Yes." Augustine grins. "Oh, and also, no. Who needs binaries? Now, ask me if I'm a human named Augustine Sycamore, or an android."

Chuckling, Xerosic nods. "I see. Are you a human named Augustine Sycamore, or an android?"

"Yes." Smiling, Augustine turns himself around, leaning back against the railing. "I think what I have to do now is work out how to reconcile both of those parts. I'm still mostly the same person I was before..." He waves a hand. "Everything. It's just that now my body is made of synthetic materials instead of organics, and I need to work out how to learn to live with that. I want to be able to get the hiccups _and_ maybe have a built-in calculator."

"Hiccups and a built-in calculator," Xerosic echoes, and laughs. "If anyone can do it, I'm sure you can!"

Augustine smiles, then looks back at the man who made his life miserable, made his life someone else's, then gave his life back. "Will you be okay?"

Xerosic smiles wanly. "I'm about to confess to first-degree murder. Still, if I'm still able to, I intend to write about artificial intelligence and robotics. Consider it my attempt at an apology."

If Xerosic turns himself in, then people will know. Augustine bites his lip. "Thank you," he says quietly.

He's not going to try to convince him not to do it. Xerosic ended his life. Even if he and Lysandre brought it back, there's still nothing that will ever change that, nothing that will ever erase the suffering his family has gone through.

But perhaps they can start to make things right.

They part ways. Augustine takes his time making his way back to the lab, head down, Holo Caster in one hand, a letter for Lysandre in the other. Lysandre is waiting for him when he arrives, apparently dozing in one of the uncomfortable-looking chairs in the foyer; he straightens up so quickly when Augustine enters that his back cricks audibly.

"Are you alright?" Lysandre says softly.

Augustine nods. "Come up to the room?"

Lysandre follows him.

It doesn't take long for Augustine to pack; they were mostly done before going to see Xerosic in the first place. Lysandre sits on the bed, his head down.

"Are you leaving?"

Augustine nods, and looks up from his backpack. "I need some space from you. And I need you to think about what you did to me - the power you had over me, this - this inequality. So - yes. I think we should break up." He smiles, but it's sad. "Lysandre, I love you. But you've been trying to recreate someone who's dead. I'm not him, not any more, I'm something new entirely. I need to work out who I am now, what I am now, and if we still have a future."

"I understand," Lysandre says quietly. "And I'm sorry. I wish you all the very best."

Augustine finishes packing, then rises and hands the letter to Lysandre. "This is from Xerosic. He's going to turn himself in."

Lysandre blinks, and opens it.

"He's leaving me the Esprit Device," he murmurs, "And all the schematics, with the provisos that I use it for the betterment of humanity."

"Will you?" Augustine asks simply.

"I will." Lysandre holds out his arm, Augustine sets down his bag and takes the seat beside him, curling into Lysandre's warm side, feeling secure, feeling loved.

It can't last.

"When Xerosic goes to trial," Augustine murmurs, "I'll go public, I think. I'm happy to work with you and the labs in a professional capacity, just not necessarily a personal one. Would that be okay?"

Lysandre nods wordlessly; Augustine suspects he's near tears again. "Alright," he says softly. "And I'll find a way to put things right. I won't make the same mistakes. I'm just sorry I made them in the first place."

"We're only human." Augustine grins. "Some more than others."

They part with a kiss.

Augustine walks out into the clear autumn night, and smiles as he reaches for his Holo Caster, dialling a familiar number.

"Diantha?" he says as the number connects, "Hey, it's me. Do you feel like a train trip to Couriway tomorrow? It's Shabbat tomorrow night, and I think Maman and Papa would like both their kids there..."


	20. Epilogue - Humanity 2.0

As jails go, this one is pretty nice.

Augustine has been here a few times, visiting every few months, when time and his busy schedule permits. He knows enough to find his own way to the visitor check-in desk, and then to the garden where the inmates are allowed to meet with friends and family.

He's not entirely sure whether he counts as Xerosic's friend, or his family. If someone helps create an android, does that make them a parent? (And what would that mean for his and Lysandre's previous relationship?)

Still, Xerosic looks pleased to see him, and this time, he's not alone, a petite young woman clutching a sheath of papers and talking to him animatedly with him. She gives him a shy smile as Augustine draws near, and Xerosic puts a reassuring hand on her shoulder.

"Augustine!" he beams, "I'd like you to meet Emma. She's become somewhat of an apprentice to me."

"Nice to meetcha," she says with a grin, reaching out to shake his hand. "Xerosic's told me a bunch about you - damn, you really do look realistic. Your hands could do with some more airbrushing, though, and you need better cuticles."

He laughs a little, scratching the back of his neck with his free hand. "Thanks, I think."

She grins back mischievously. "Well, if I'm gonna be some world-famous roboticist when I get out next year, I gotta know what to look out for, right?"

Emma seems like a sweet girl. Augustine wonders vaguely what she's in for, then decides it probably isn't his business. It certainly isn't likely to be anything like Xerosic's sentence - thirty years for first-degree murder, eligible for parole in fifteen; two down, thirteen to go.

But in a minimum security prison, one where he can be rehabilitated, where he can work and thrive. He's no risk to anyone else; Augustine made sure to emphasise that at the trial. (The trial for his murder. It's a first for the victim to show up to one of those, really.)

Along with Emma, Xerosic has someone else to introduce him to. Clinging to her leg is an Espurr - no, a robotic Espurr, staring up at him with reflective eyes. Automatically, Augustine extends an electronic ping as a greeting; the Espurr sends one back.

Xerosic spots him watching. "And this is Mimi," he says with a grin, gesturing to the little robot. "Don't worry - she's completely built from scratch! A little less sophisticated than you are, of course, but you did get a good head start."

Emma crouches down to pet the Espurr, smiling broadly. "She's the prototype of a line of companion robots! See, when I was homeless, I had, like, no one, right? But these little guys are meant to keep kids like me company, and help protect 'em, and keep 'em out of trouble." She laughs once, flipping her hair back. "We're gonna help make things better for street kids with 'em."

"Think of her as your little sister," Xerosic says, and Augustine finds himself smiling automatically.

"Hi, little sister."

Emma and Mimi leave after a little while; Augustine and Xerosic are left alone, strolling through the garden. "You're looking well," Augustine observes with a smile. "Mimi's pretty remarkable."

"She is, isn't she?" he grins. "A lot of her architecture is based on your own. No memories or thought pattern programs, of course, but she has the knowledge base and emotion core, and self-evolving code. The more she learns, the more she develops. She's still pretty dependent on us, of course, but she's still a kitten, really. Still!" The exclamation comes suddenly enough that Augustine starts. "What news of the outside world?"

"The outside world is pretty good," Augustine smiles. "I've been keeping busy. There's this support group that I've started - well, it's part support group, part development group. The latest suggestion is GPS. We'll never get lost again!"

The world has changed in two years.

There are more like him, now. More people facing death, given another chance at life. More facing severe life-threatening injuries or illnesses, gaining new organs, new body systems, new ways of living.

With one big difference.

"Lysandre's new company is doing well," he adds, and his smile is genuine. "I brought some articles - both the scientific kind and the journalism kind." They're in a clear plastic folder, already checked over by security; he hands them over. "Do you know much about it?"

"Just that it uses Esprit," Xerosic says, eyebrows raised in clear curiosity. "Last I checked, he was still making prosthetic limbs and organs. I assume you know more about this new one?"

Augustine nods. "I've been doing some work with it - the people it benefits are usually redirected to one of our support groups. With most of our members, they can give informed consent before, well, anything happens, before going to all the effort of making a new body. But for people like me, who never regained consciousness..."

He shrugs, choosing not to mention exactly why he had been put in that situation in the first place; Xerosic smiles wryly nonetheless.

"In that case, getting informed consent is a lot trickier. So what this does is make the Esprit recording, then broadcasts the user as a hologram. They can give consent then, or, if they choose, to be able to say goodbye to their loved ones, where they may not have been able to otherwise." He smiles, exhales; they're doing it right, now. "It's called Last Wishes. It's written into the charter that the most important thing of all is the agency and choice of the people it's used for. There won't be any more like me. We're making sure of it."

Prosthetics, to create a better quality of life for those facing lifechanging injury. A new android body, for those facing premature death. Holograms to give a last word, a final say, to ensure that no one is ever forced into an existence they did not ask for.

And when the technology advances enough that synthetic-born androids like Mimi walk amongst them, Augustine will campaign with them, for all of those who never got a say in their creation, to be able to have their own control of their code, so that they can make their own decisions about their existence - along with access to therapy, a meaningful and respectful life path, and the rights that all sapient beings should have.

Humanity is changing.

"I'm thinking of joining it formally," he says.

"You should," Xerosic answers. "You should."

He parts ways with Xerosic cheerfully, then sets out on a brisk walk. He has a text from Diantha - a video from her latest campaign, and could he give her some feedback, please - and another from Sophie with a Holo of the new starters. He almost walks into a streetlight as he laughs at their antics; he'll have to visit the lab and say hello to everyone soon, give Artemis the finest Pokepuffs he can find.

The visit has done him good. When he steps into Fleur-de-Lis Labs late in the afternoon, when he steps into the elevator, he does not hesitate before pressing the button for the second floor, where Lysandre's office is.

He misses him.

Lysandre is only a little surprised to see him - they do work in a similar field, of course - and offers him a smile when he knocks on the frame of the door. "Augustine," he says, his voice perfectly calm. "What can I help you with today?"

He exhales, more for the look of it than any need.

"I'd like to join the Last Wishes team," he says, and, before he can talk himself out of it, adds, "And take you out for dinner tonight."

Lysandre blinks; he looks like he hasn't even heard the first part. "As - you mean, as a date?" he asks cautiously, hopefully. Oh, there is so much hope in his voice, and Augustine finds himself melting, just a little.

He misses Lysandre. He knows that he's learned from his mistakes, that they've both grown, that they've both changed.

And now he wants to see how they can continue to grow and change, together.

"As a date," he confirms, and he fidgets with his sleeve, suddenly unable to meet his eye. "Just - it's been two years, and I haven't been with anyone else since then - I mean, I have casually, there's this one guy, Meyer, tech guy, he helped with, ah, anatomical features, he tested them _very_ thoroughly, really, you should send him a thank you card - and - breasts. I mean, I have them, not that you should send some to him, just, I actually like some of my binders, and it's not like I need to worry about my ribs or lungs any more, and - it's my body. I liked my body the way it was, you shouldn't have changed it, but that's in the past and it's back to normal now, he helped with that - but I was thinking about an actual serious relationship with him, he's a sweetheart, but then I realised that I didn't want to, because I didn't want to be with anyone else. No one except you. I miss you. I miss us together. I'm babbling, aren't I."

"Just a little." Lysandre looks a little overcome; he's holding on to the desk. "I - well. Dinner sounds good."

Augustine sags a little, propping himself up against the wall. "Lys, things have to be different this time," he says softly, forcing himself to keep his voice steady, measured. "You can't have that sort of control over me again, that's the worst kind of relationship. You could control my movements, you could control my body, and you can't ever be like that again. If we do this, we do this as equals."

Lysandre nods. His expression is shamefaced; his knuckles are white where he's gripping the desk.

"And," Augustine pushes on, because this is important, this is something he has grown to understand and that Lysandre needs to, absolutely _must_ know before things proceed, "And, I'm not the same person I was before the explosion. I'm Augustine Sycamore, and I'm an android. You need to realise that I'm not a perfect replacement. He's gone, and I'm - well - I'm myself."

"I know," Lysandre almost whispers. "I know."

He forces a smile to his lips, looks up, tentative and hopeful. "Well, if you're willing to get to know me, then... I'd like to start over. Do you want to start over? See how things go?"

Lysandre smiles, a proper, warm smile. "I would like that very much," he murmurs, and steps out from behind his desk, reaching for his coat, offering Augustine his arm. "Shall we go, then?"

"Sounds good," Augustine says, and he takes Lysandre's arm, setting off, starting over, starting again.

 

**[/story]**


End file.
